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THE 

AMERICAN 

SPIRIT 

FRANKLIN  K.  LANE 


THE 
AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

ADDRESSES  IN  WAR-TIME 

BY 

FRANKLIN  K.  LANE 

Secretary  of  the  Interior 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1918,  by 
Frederick  A.   Stokes  Company 

All  rights  reserved 


V'A 


TO 
MY  SON 

IN  FRANCE 


381931 


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FOREWORD 

Our  pride  is  that  America  is  playing  a  noble 
part  in  the  life  of  the  world.  Not  a  little,  selfish, 
shrewd  part,  nor  even  a  strong  and  ambitious  part, 
but  a  high-minded,  generous, —  a  noble  part.  Our 
one  fixed  doctrine  of  international  policy  is 
founded  in  a  fine  chivalry,  and  all  the  resources  of 
this  conquered  continent  are  the  common  property 
of  all  peoples.  Indeed,  it  is  not  going  beyond  the 
truth  to  say  that  when  we  look  deeply  into  the 
American  heart  we  will  surely  and  always  find  a 
living  and  growing  sense  of  trusteeship  underlying 
our  rights  of  possession.  We  see  superficialities 
which  make  for  doubt  sometimes.  We  swing  off 
into  eddies  and  by-currents  and  are  led  to  believe 
that  the  main  stream  is  a  myth,  that  after  all  this 
is  a  world  for  getting,  and  getting  any  way  one 
can,  for  doing  and  doing  what  at  the  time  is  profit- 
able. But  this  is  a  humor  of  growth.  The  mood 
does  not  last. 

Take  from  America  the  youthful  belief  in  her- 


vi  FOREWORD 

self  as  an  evangel  of  the  gospel  of  Freedom  and 
this  war  means  nothing  to  us ;  we  would  not  have 
made  the  venture  and  planted  our  standard  beside 
those  of  France  and  England  *'  for  better  or  for 
worse.'*  And  our  strange  Emersonian  faith  will 
not  permit  us  to  believe  that  it  can  be  "  for  worse." 
Germany  may  think  in  terms  of  man  power  and 
gun  power  for  forty  years  and  yet  we  cannot  fear 
the  ultimate  worst,  because  we  sing  The  Battle 
Hymn  of  the  Republic  — "  God's  truth  is  march- 
ing on,"  and  we  believe  it;  it  is  a  part  of  us;  it  is 
as  real  as  our  mountains  and  our  rivers.  The 
only  real  blow  that  we  could  suffer  in  this  war,  or 
any  other,  would  be  the  destruction  of  this  faith. 
It  explains  to  us  our  history  and  those  whom  we 
call  our  leaders.  Where  it  comes  from  or  whither 
It  will  lead  us  we  have  not  stopped  to  inquire. 
Like  the  salt  that  savors  the  sea  it  has  washed  in 
from  all  lands.  Man's  spirit  everywhere  calls 
out  that  Justice  shall  be  his,  and  Justice  means  un- 
derstanding, and  understanding  means  sympathy, 
and  sympathy  means  brotherhood,  and  brother- 
hood means  democracy, —  and  so  we  come  to  the 
meaning  of  the  great  movement  a  part  of  which 
we  are. 


FOREWORD  vii 

Democracy  is  as  expansible  a  term  as  Chris- 
tianity. Some  see  in  it  a  meaning  no  deeper  than 
the  securing  of  the  right  to  vote,  to  choose  our 
own  officials,  to  make  our  own  local  and  national 
policies.  This  is  its  political  phase,  the  founda- 
tion of  all  others,  without  which  none  other  could 
have  been  evolved.  In  essence,  however,  it  is  an 
attitude  toward  mankind  and  Its  problems,  politi- 
cal, social,  economic, —  a  philosophy. 

The  greatness  of  the  American  Revolution  lay 
in  this,  that  it  was  the  culmination  of  centuries  of 
struggling  philosophy  incorporated  in  a  delib- 
erate and  successful  act.  We  gave  form  and  sub- 
stance and  actuality  to  the  dreams  of  philosophers 
and  statesmen.  And  when  Russian  and  German 
meet  on  their  borders  to-day  to  discuss  what  they 
term  the  national  right  of  "  self-determination  " 
they  are  taking  the  words  out  of  the  mouths  of 
that  little  group  of  Americans  who  grounded  their 
right  of  revolution  on  the  doctrine  that  the  "  con- 
sent of  the  governed  "  is  the  foundation  of  liberty. 
We  pulled  down  from  the  hazy  heavens  the  divine 
rights  of  rulers  and  gave  to  man  himself  —  weak, 
undeveloped,  climbing  man  —  this  all  powerful 
weapon    of    self-government.     The    outstanding 


viii  FOREWORD 

world-figure  which  represents  this  phase  of  democ- 
racy is  that  of  Washington.  His  monument  is  far 
more  than  an  enduring  and  beautiful  tribute  to  one 
who  took  the  supreme  risk  for  our  sake,  it  is  the 
arm  of  the  nation  raised  in  solemn  pledge  that  here 
forevermore  man  shall  be  his  own  master. 

In  these  latter  years,  however,  Lincoln's  lank 
figure  has  come  to  be  the  symbol  of  a  new  expres- 
sion of  democracy,  the  social  as  distinguished  from 
the  political  interpretation.  As  the  last  century 
belonged  to  Washington,  so  it  may  be  safely 
prophesied  that  this  century  will  belong  to  Lincoln. 
He  speaks  the  word  of  human  sympathy,  of  con- 
cern for  others,  of  deepest  love  for  his  kind, —  yet 
surely  saved  from  sentimentality  by  robust  com- 
mon sense.  He  had  feeling  limited  by  judgment, 
a  dynamic  heart  that  sent  out  its  currents  by  way 
of  a  sobering,  checking  brain.  He  saw  his  goal 
with  his  deep  emotional  nature  and  felt  his  way 
toward  it,  as  nature  feels  her  way  toward  her  mys- 
terious ends,  by  transitions  that  always  link  the 
past  with  the  future.  In  this  way  we  shall  walk; 
haltingly,  perhaps,  though  I  think  not;  stumbling 
often,  of  course.  We  must  walk  knowing  that  we 
will  solve  nothing.     For  there  can  be  no  finality  to 


FOREWORD  ix 

progress.  "  The  best  "  is  our  aim,  yet  man,  alas  1 
never  achieves  more  than  a  comparative.  A  mil- 
lennium is  prophesied,  but  this  same  prophecy  de- 
clares that  before  it  comes  there  must  appear  the 
Perfect  Man. 

How  shall  we  translate  democracy  into  terms  of 
food  for  all  who  will  pay  the  Biblical  price,  land 
for  those  alone  who  will  use  It,  gold  for  those  who 
can  transmute  it  into  wide-spread  comfort,  power 
for  those  who  can  lead  wisely?  These  are  among 
the  questions  this  democracy  must  answer,  and  an- 
swer concretely,  if  we  are  to  play  further  that 
noble  part  In  the  life  of  the  world  which  we  have 
set  for  ourselves.  We  are  groping  now  in  the 
search  for  the  way  best  fitted  to  our  natures,  our 
traditions,  our  needs.  Is  it  easier  to  give  private 
business  a  social  sense  or  to  make  government  effi- 
cient? Property  must  answer  this  question,  and 
not  at  Its  leisure,  or  the  alternative  chance  will  be 
taken.  The  whole  world  at  this,  very  moment  is 
tense  with  importunlngs.  ■"•^ 

Above  all  else  we  must  cherish  in  our  search 
this  central  glowing  thought,  that  the  goal  is  not 
to  know  how  many  men  In  mass  live  without  fear 
of  the  morrow  and  without  fear  of  their  neighbor, 


X  FOREWORD 

but  how  many  individual  men  are  challenged  by 
circumstance  and  in  spirit  to  reveal  their  full 
powers,  and  have  opportunity  to  make  the  proof. 
For  a  true  Democracy  is  not  to  be  likened  to  a 
Milky  Way  of  pale  and  even  effulgence;  it  is 
rather  a  round  heaven  of  striving  stars,  each 
vying  with  the  other  in  glory. 

F.  K.  L. 
Washington,  D.  C, 
February  5,  19 18. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I    The  American  Spirit 


II  The  Unconquerable  Soul 

III  The  American  Pioneer     . 

IV  The  Rights  of  Neighbors  . 
V  Fruits  of  Faith  .... 

VI  American  Tradition      .     . 

VII  Why  do  We  Fight  Germany 

VIII  Foresight  and  Cooperation 

IX  Three  Flags  in  the  Same  Colors 

X  Greater  Than  Making  Money 

XI  The  Message  of  the  West     . 

XII  A  New  and  Greater  America 

XIII  Makers  of  the  Flag  .     .     . 


PAGE 

I 

9 
i6 
23 
27 
32 
46 
55 
65 
69 
85 
104 
128 


v" 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

Address  delivered  at  the  Commencement  Exercises  of 
Brown  University,  June  21,  igi6. 

I  do  not  know  what  better  I  can  say  to  you  this 
afternoon  than  to  speak  a  simple  word  of  cheer 
about  that  very  mystical  thing  which  we  call  the 
American  spirit.  It  seems  to  have  been  lost  or  to 
be  on  the  verge  of  being  lost.  I  wouldn't  have 
known  this  if  I  had  not  been  reading  some  rather 
gloomy  and  anemic  New  England  papers.  My 
friends,  if  the  American  spirit  gives  any  evidence 
of  being  in  a  state  of  decline  or  decadence  in  New 
England  I  beg  that  you  will  come  with  me  to  my 
Western  country  — "  Out  where  the  West  be- 
gins." 

Spirit  —  What  is  the  American  spirit?  Is  it 
love  of  adventure?  Two  years  ago  Congress  au- 
thorized the  construction  of  a  railroad  in  Alaska, 
—  five  hundred  miles  straight  away  from  the  sea 


i'    "    '  The  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

to  the  Circle.  We  needed  a  thousand  men,  and 
within  sixty  days  thirty-three  thousand  had  made 
petition  that  they  might  take  the  hazards  of  that 
new  country;  —  not  idlers,  the  flotsam  of  the  sea 
of  civilization  —  but  men  of  steady  habit,  em- 
ployed already  but  ready  for  a  new  adventure. 
There's  something  American  about  that. 

There  is  no  sense  in  saying  that  the  spirit  has 
gone  out  of  a  people  when  Uncle  Sam  as  a  landed 
proprietor  is  selling  twelve  million  acres  of  desert 
every  year  to  people  who  earn  it  by  living  on  it 
and  turning  it  into  farms.  A  few  weeks  ago  we 
opened  a  tract  of  land  in  Northern  Montana 
where  the  thermometer  falls  to  forty  below  zero 
sometimes.  There  were  twelve  hundred  farms  to 
be  sold,  and  there  were  twenty-seven  thousand  ap- 
plicants. Out  of  the  first  hundred  and  fifty  names 
drawn  from  the  box  not  one  failed  to  accept  his 
opportunity.  We  challenged  him  to  go  into  the 
wilderness  and  make  a  home  and  he  took  the  chal- 
lenge.    There's  something  American  about  that. 

I  have  seen  it  stated  that  the  American  had  for- 
gotten noble  things  and  become  a  pampered  draw- 
ing room  darling,  like  some  poodle,  fat  and  ease- 
loving.     Do  you  know  that  the  average  wage  in 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  3 

the  United  States  is  less  than  six  hundred  dollars 
a  year,  and  that  only  three  hundred  thousand  out 
of  one  hundred  million  pay  income  tax  ? 

Yes,  I  hear  it  said,  but  will  these  men  fight? 
There  is  the  test  Do  they  love  anything  but  the 
pay  envelope  ?  I  ask  you  back :  When  did  these 
men  ever  fail  to  fight?  There  stands  at  my  door 
in  Washington  a  man  who  went  into  the  Civil 
War  from  Ohio, —  he  and  his  father  and  his  two 
brothers  and  his  two  brothers-in-law  —  and  after 
four  years  he  alone  came  out  alive.  I  asked  him 
one  day,  "  What  did  you  go  to  war  for?  "  **  To 
save  the  Union,"  he  answered. 

Two  millions  of  those  boys,  averaging  but 
nineteen  years  of  age,  went  into  that  war  to  save 
the  Union.  And  if  you  had  asked  them  what  the 
Union  was,  few  could  have  given  a  better  answer 
than  that  it  was  the  thing  they  were  fighting  for, 
—  an  idea  not  to  be  expressed  in  words,  symbol- 
ized by  a  few  stripes  and  stars.  Has  there  ever 
been  a  time  when  we  did  not  stand  the  test?  The 
time  when  the  American  spirit  came  nearest  to 
failing  was  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  when 
New  York  would  not  join  in  signing  the  Declar- 
ation of  Independence  and  Rhode  Island  refused 


■'•  4*-*  *     THE 'American  spirit 

for  so  long  to  ratify  the  Constitution.  And  when 
I  read  New  York  or  Rhode  Island  papers  criticiz- 
ing some  of  our  Western  States  for  lacking  in 
spirit  because  they  are  not  yet  convinced  that  we 
need  military  training  for  our  boys,  I  just  turn 
back  to  the  old  school  history  and  ask  a  few  dis- 
agreeable questions  about  the  past. 
r""  National  spirit  and  martial  spirit  are  not  the 
same.  There  was  a  time  when  war  was  all  of 
romance  and  of  gallantry  and  of  opportunity  that 
the  world  offered.  That  time  has  gone.  War 
now  at  its  best  is  but  one  expression  of  the  human 
I  passion  for  adventure  and  achievement. 

The  spirit  of  America  is  against  war  not  be- 
cause we  have  grown  cowardly  and  fear  death, 
nor  because  we  have  grown  flabby  and  love  soft- 
ness; no,  not  even  because  we  have  become  con- 
scious converts  to  the  Prince  of  Peace.  But  we 
in  America  have  something  larger  to  do.  We 
are  discovering  our  country.  Every  tree  is  a 
challenge  to  us,  and  every  pool  of  water  and  every 
foot  of  soil.  The  mountains  are  our  enemies. 
We  must  pierce  them  and  make  them  serve.  The 
wilful  rivers  we  must  curb;  and  out  of  the  seas 
and  the  air  renew  the  life  of  the  earth  itself.     We 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  5 

have  no  time  for  war.  We  are  doing  something 
so  much  more  important.  We  are  at  work. 
That  is  the  greatest  of  all  adventures.  When 
war  comes  to  a  Democracy  it  comes  because  men 
are  not  allowed  peacefully  to  work. 

What  would  we  fight  for?  For  what  Roger 
Williams  fought  —  to  be  let  alone,  to  have  the 
opportunity  to  show  what  man  can  do  for  man. 

A  spirit  is  intangible.  It  defies  definition  or 
limitation.  It  can  only  be  made  comprehensible 
by  acts.  So  let  me  illustrate  my  idea  of  the 
spirit  of  America  by  naming  two  men  —  both 
Californians  —  Theodore  Judah  and  Herbert 
Hoover. 

All  have  heard  of  Huntington,  Stanford,  Hop- 
kins and  Crocker,  the  builders  of  the  Central 
Pacific  railroad.  The  real  builder  of  that  road 
was  a  young  Connecticut  engineer  named  Judah. 
He  had  the  vision,  he  made  the  surveys.  He 
found  the  way  across  the  mountains.  Then  he 
found  Stanford,  the  grocer,  and  Huntington,  the 
hardware  man,  and  told  his  dream  and  showed 
his  plans.  They  caught  fire.  Judah  convinced 
them  that  Congress  could  be  made  to  supply  the 
money.     He  came  to  Washington,  became  the 


6  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

clerk  of  the  House  Committee  on  Pacific  Rail- 
roads, then  the  clerk  of  the  Senate  Committee, 
wrote  both  reports ;  the  bill  was  passed,  and  going 
home  in  triumph  he  died  upon  the  Isthmus  of 
Panama.  The  spirit  of  young  Judah  has  been 
the  making  of  America. 

The  next  man  I  name  to  you  is  Herbert 
Hoover,  mining  engineer  —  Hoover  of  Califor- 
nia, Hoover  of  Siberia,  Hoover  of  Russia, 
Hoover  of  England,  Hoover  of  Belgium,  Hoover 
of  the  world,  the  head  of  the  Belgian  Relief  Com- 
mittee. That  young  man  comes  to  this  country 
unnoticed  and  leaves  unnoticed.  But  his  admin- 
istrative mind  has  made  possible  the  feeding  of  a 
nation.  He  has  organized  the  financial  system 
for  Belgium.  Through  him  the  heart  of  the 
world  has  spoken  to  those  suffering  people.  This 
young  man  is  only  a  mining  engineer  from  Stan- 
ford University  who  has  drifted  all  round  the 
world,  and  when  the  war  broke  out  was  living  in 
England  managing  great  industrial  and  mining 
properties  in  the  Ural  Mountains,  India  and  the 
United  States.  A  hundred  thousand  men  were  at 
work  for  him,  and  all  the  genius  that  he  had  was 
at  once  put  to  work  to  succor  the  unfortunate 


THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  7 

Belgians.  I  never  will  forget  the  simple  way  In 
which  he  told  me  of  his  adventure  in  going  to 
France  and  asking  for  help.  He  went  to  the 
Premier  and  said :  "  I  have  got  to  have  some 
money  for  the  relief  of  the  Belgians  and  the  in- 
vaded areas  of  France/'  and  the  Premier  said: 
*'  But  we  have  a  war  ourselves,  we  have  destitute 
people  of  our  own.  Truly  the  Germans  are  in 
duty  bound  to  support  the  people  they  invade! 
How  much  do  you  think  you  should  have  from 
us?"  **And  I  said,  *  Well,  I  think  we  should 
have  twenty-two  million  francs  a  month  from  you 
until  the  war  is  over.'  And  the  Premier  said, 
*  Oh,  my,  we  have  not  the  money,  hut  I  will  see  the 
banks,  I  will  see  what  can  be  done.'  And  I  went 
back  to  London  with  my  heart  sick.  But  the  next 
day  there  came  a  letter,  saying,  '  Dear  Mr. 
Hoover,  please  find  order  for  twenty-two  million 
francs.  I  beg  you  will  acknowledge  it,'  signed  by 
the  Premier  of  France."  And  each  month  the 
same  check  has  come,  and  no  question  has  ever 
been  asked  as  to  how  it  was  spent.  He  said  to  me 
with  a  glow:  "  Do  not  believe  that  the  American 
flag  is  not  respected  abroad.  If  any  one  ever  tells 
you  that  tell  him  to  go  to  Brussels  and  stand  in 


8  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

front  of  the  United  States  legation  and  see  the  Bel- 
gian as  he  passes  take  off  his  hat  to  the  Stars  and 
Stripes;  no  English  flag,  no  French  flag,  no  Rus- 
sian flag,  no  Spanish  flag,  no  Japanese  flag,  no 
Chinese  flag,  but  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  which  never 
have  been  hauled  down  In  Belgium ;  and  from  sun- 
rise in  the  morning  until  sunset  at  night  the  Bel- 
gian peasants  and  Belgian  artisans  pass  that  house 
and  as  each  passes  takes  his  hat  off  to  that  flag.'* 
Judah  —  the  Incarnation  of  the  spirit  of  the 
American  ambition  to  make  hard  places  easy. 
Hoover  —  the  Incarnation  of  the  spirit  of  Amer- 
ican desire  to  help  the  world.  Let  us  stand  be- 
side the  Belgian  peasant  before  that  flag  in  Brus- 
sels and  take  heart. 


THE  UNCONQUERABLE  SOUL 

Address  delivered  at  Commencement  Exercises  of  Gal- 
laudet  College  for  the  Deaf  and  Dumb,  June  22,  1914, 

The  bravest  sight  in  all  this  world  is  a  man 
fighting  against  odds. 

The  swimmer  with  his  head  up  stream,  the 
climber  facing  the  storm,  the  soldier  with  his  back 
to  the  wall. 

The  rich  young  man  putting  away  the  easy  cup 
of  pleasure  which  drugs  into  uselessness. 

Abraham  Lincoln,  the  tired  plow  boy,  making 
the  cabin  fire  light  his  path  to  knowledge.  Helen 
Keller,  fighting  her  way  up  out  of  the  lonesome 
darkness,  slowly  rising,  step  by  step,  on  the  golden 
runged  ladder  of  imagination  out  of  a  voiceless, 
nameless,  colorless,  formless,  thoughtless,  hid- 
eous world  into  one  of  friendship,  purpose  and 
beauty.     These  are  our  heroes. 

We  envy  the  gifted  —  the  swift  runner,  the 
sweet  singer,  the  burdenless  —  we  call  them  the 
chosen  of  the  gods.     But  our  hearts  go  out  to 

9 


lo  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

those  who  are  not  started  at  the  scratch,  the  ones 
who  have  a  handicap,  who  know  it  and  in  whom 
rebelHous  bitterness  is  transformed  into  resolu- 
tion.    Their  triumph  makes  us  all  proud. 

And  that  is  why  we  are  here  to-day.  To  re- 
joice with  you.  You  have  triumphed  and  we  wish 
a  share  in  that  triumph.  Nature  in  one  of  her 
mysterious  moods  placed  her  hands  upon  your 
ears,  and  in  so  doing  dared  you  to  presume  to 
play  life's  game  as  men  and  women.  You  took 
up  that  challenge.  And  now  you  have  come 
home,  not  seeking  honors,  spurning  sympathy, 
to  lay  the  tribute  of  your  affectionate  appreciation 
at  the  feet  of  those  who  pointed  out  the  way  by 
which  you  foiled  mischievous  nature.  Whatever 
your  modesty  we  may  be  permitted  in  our  pride 
to  say:  "You  have  made  good."  And  those 
words  are  American  for  the  ribbon  of  the  Legion 
of  Honor  and  the  Victoria  Cross. 

This  I  beheld,  or  dreamed  it  in  a  dream :  — 
There  spread  a  cloud  of  dust  along  a  plain ; 
And  underneath  the  cloud,  or  in  it,  raged 
A  furious  battle,  and  men  yelled,  and  swords 
Shocked  upon  swords  and  shields.     A  prince's  banner 
Wavered,  then  staggered  backward,  hemmed  by  foes. 


THE  UNCONQUERABLE  SOUL       ii 

A  craven  hung  along  the  battle's  edge, 

And  thought,  "  Had  I  a  sword  of  keener  steel  — 

That  blue  blade  that  the  king's  son  bears, —  but  this 

Blunt  thing  — !  '*  he  snapt  and  flung  it  from  his  hand, 

And  lowering  crept  away  and  left  the  field. 

Then  came  the  king's  son,  wounded,  sore  bestead, 

And  weaponless,  and  saw  the  broken  sword. 

Hilt-buried  in  the  dry  and  trodden  sand. 

And  ran  and  snatched  it,  and  with  battle-shout 

Lifted  afresh  he  hewed  his  enemy  down. 

And  saved  a  great  cause  that  heroic  day. 

Those  lines  are  by  E.  R.  Sill,  who  also  wrote 
those  exquisite  lines  "  The  Fool's  Prayer  "  with 
which  you  are  perhaps  familiar  —  if  not,  you 
should  be.  The  title  given  by  Mr.  Sill  to  his  lines 
is  "  Opportunity "  but  that  generalization  does 
not  fix  the  idea  which  It  conveys  to  me;  a  more 
appropriate  title  would  be  "  The  Thoroughbred," 
for  to  the  king's  son  that  broken  sword  was  a 
challenge.  You,  teachers  and  preachers,  engi- 
neers and  artists,  mechanics  and  architects,  who 
have  by  force  of  character  linked  yourselves  to 
the  world  and  refused  to  despair  while  there  was 
so  much  as  a  broken  sword  to  your  hand  are  the 
ones  to  whom  that  poem  In  Its  thought  Is  dedi- 
cated. 


12  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

A  group  of  bold  adventurers  —  that's  what 
you  are;  every  one  with  a  spirit  that  would  dare 
to  question  the  sphinx.  Nature  Intended  that  you 
should  not  know  what  I  am  saying.  But  here 
you  are,  reading  my  thoughts  as  soon  as  they 
touch  my  lips,  and  perhaps  earlier  still.  Why 
this  refusal  to  accept  the  decree  of  nature? 
What  was  the  spirit  that  made  you  seek  to  master 
those  secrets  which  It  apparently  had  not  been  In- 
tended should  be  yours?  What  kind  of  a  Colum- 
bus' voyage  was  this  you  took  when  you  broke  out 
into  this  new  world  and  determined  to  make  It 
your  own? 

Ah,  perhaps  what  you  have  done  is  after  all 
what  all  have  done  who  *'  fought  and  tolled  and 
ruled  and  loved  and  made  this  world."  Your 
progress  may  be  but  the  symbol  of  the  progress  of 
all  civilization.  ,  The  "  mystical  hanker  after 
something  higher  "  drives  the  adventurous  ones  to 
go  forth  and  find  some  way  which  nature  had  con- 
cealed and  made  most  hard.  If  she  will  not  let 
us  hear,  we  will  see,  and  If  she  lays  her  hands 
upon  our  eyes,  we  will  make  ten  eyes  out  of  our 
ten  fingers. 

What  a  world  of  adventure  we  do  live  in  — 


THE  UNCONQUERABLE  SOUL       13 

everyday,  Inside  of  ourselves,  outside  of  our- 
selves, always  making  nature  serve  us  willy-nllly; 
and  all  out  of  the  intrepidity  of  our  adventurous 
spirits. 

Doubtless  many  of  you  saw  the  first  public  flight 
of  an  aeroplane  just  across  the  Potomac,  five  or 
six  years  ago.  Then  we  witnessed  a  triumph 
over  the  last  of  the  three  great  powers.  The 
earth  was  ours  and  the  fulness  thereof,  the  sea 
and  all  that  dwelt  therein.  But  this  thin  mys- 
terious gas  which  enveloped  us  was  an  eternal 
challenge,  an  ever  present  proof  of  our  weak- 
ness; its  softest  zephyr  was  a  word  of  defiance. 
But  the  air  is  ours  now;  ours  to  use;  ours  to  bring 
closer  together  all  men  —  which  seems  to  be  the 
resolute  underlying  purpose  of  this  upward  trend 
called  civilization.  Now  we  can  play  in  the 
heavens  and  make  sport  with  the  birds  of  the 
air.  Yet,  is  this  capture  of  the  air  more  of  a 
grand  adventure  than  the  capture  of  the  fleeting 
word  —  an  adventure  that  each  one  of  you  went 
upon  when  he  first  sought  to  make  the  world  his 
against  the  apparent  mandate  of  nature?  And 
what  is  civilization  but  the  recording  of  all  such 
adventures,  gropings,  searchings,  reaching  out  of 


14  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

hands?  This  life  Is  worth  while  because  nature 
has  issued  her  challenge  to  every  one,  to  all  man- 
kind. 

In  Paris,  on  the  boulevard  which  faces  the  tomb 
of  Napoleon  there  Is  a  statue  of  Pasteur.  The 
seated  figure  of  the  scientist  crowns  a  marble 
column.  On  the  sides  of  this  column  are  four 
bas  reHefs, —  one  a  girl  plucking  grapes,  another 
a  boy  tending  sheep,  the  third  a  man  driving  oxen, 
—  all  testifying  to  the  debt  the  world  owes  to  this 
quiet  student  for  the  driving  out  of  diseases  which 
threatened  the  life  of  the  grape,  the  sheep,  and 
the  cattle.  On  the  front  of  the  column  Is  a  group 
which  should  make  the  name  of  Falgulere  im- 
mortal. Half  risen  from  her  couch,  with  hag- 
gard face,  an  invalid  girl  is  leaning  against  her 
mother  who  is  looking  up  into  the  eyes  of  Pas- 
teur with  supreme  gratitude,  while  shrinking  away 
from  these  two,  with  back  toward  them  and  turn- 
ing the  corner  of  the  pedestal  Is  the  defeated 
figure  of  Death. 

The  man  does  not  live  —  or  if  he  does  I  do  not 
wish  to  know  him  —  who  can  stand  in  the  pres- 
ence of  those  two  monuments  and  not  say  in  his 
heart,  "  I  had  rather  be  that  simple  patient  man 


THE  UNCONQUERABLE  SOUL       15 

of  science  than  the  conqueror  of  Europe."  And 
yet  I  believe  Napoleon  was  almost  as  necessary 
to  the  world  as  he  believed  himself  to  be  —  a 
pitiless  upturner  of  old  things,  who  plowed  the 
soil  of  nations  for  the  upspringing  of  a  new  and 
stronger  crop. 

Pasteur,  however,  typifies  the  spirit  of  our  new 
day  —  wherein  man*s  mind  triumphs  over  resist- 
ing, unwilling,  terrorizing  nature.  Man  has  been 
dominated  by  his  fears.  His  battles  and  his 
preachings  and  his  politics  have  been  based  upon 
the  dread  of  something  worse  that  might  befall 
him.  But  ours  is  a  day  of  gladness,  because  it  is 
the  day  of  hope.  We  have  shifted  the  fight. 
Instead  of  creating  fear  we  are  destroying  fears. 
Instead  of  adding  to  the  burdens  of  those  afflicted, 
we  are  lifting  those  burdens.  Instead  of  reject- 
ing those  whom  nature  has  handicapped  as  unfit, 
we  are  rejoicing  together  that  none  is  unfit  who 
has  a  stout  heart. 


THE  AMERICAN  PIONEER 

Address  delivered  at  the  opening  of  the  Panama-Pacific 
Exposition,  San  Francisco,  February  20,  1915. 

The  sculptors  who  have  ennobled  these  build- 
ings with  their  work  have  surely  given  full  wing 
to  their  fancy  in  seeking  to  symbolize  the  tale 
which  this  exposition  tells.  Among  these  figures 
I  have  sought  for  one  which  would  represent  to 
me  the  significance  of  this  great  enterprise. 

Prophets,  priests,  and  kings  are  here,  con- 
querors and  mystical  figures  of  ancient  legend;  but 
these  do  not  speak  the  word  I  hear. 

My  eye  Is  drawn  to  the  least  conspicuous  of  all 
—  the  modest  figure  of  a  man  standing  beside 
two  oxen,  which  looks  down  upon  the  court  of  the 
nations,  where  Ea«st  and  West  come  face  to  face. 

Towering  above  his  gaunt  figure  is  the  canopy 
of  his  prairie  schooner. 

Gay  conquistadores  ride  beside  him,  and  one 
must  look  hard  to  see  this  simple,  plodding  figure. 

16 


THE  AMERICAN  PIONEER         17 

Yet  that  man  is  to  me  the  one  hero  of  this  day. 

Without  him  we  would  not  be  here. 

Without  him  banners  would  not  fly,  nor  bands 
play. 

Without  him  San  Francisco  would  not  be  to- 
day the  gayest  city  of  the  globe. 

Shall  I  tell  you  who  he  is,  this  key  figure  in  the 
arch  of  our  enterprise? 

That  slender,  dauntless,  plodding,  modest  fig- 
ure is  the  American  pioneer. 

To  me  he  is,  indeed,  far  more;  he  is  the  ad- 
venturous spirit  of  our  restless  race. 

Long  ago  he  set  sail  with  Ulysses.  But 
Ulysses  turned  back. 

He  sailed  again  with  Columbus  for  the  Indies 
and  heard  with  joy  the  quick  command,  "  Sail  on, 
sail  on,  and  on."  But  the  westward  way  was 
barred. 

He  landed  at  Plymouth  Rock  and  with  his  dull- 
eyed  oxen  has  made  the  long,  long  journey  across 
our  continent.  His  way  has  been  hard,  slow, 
momentous. 

He  made  his  path  through  soggy,  sodden  for- 
ests where  the  storms  of  a  thousand  years  con- 
spired to  block  his  way. 


i8  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

He  drank  with  delight  of  the  brackish  water 
where  the  wild  beasts  wallowed. 

He  trekked  through  the  yielding,  treacherous 
snows;  forded  swift-running  waters;  crept  pain- 
fully through  rocky  gorges  where  Titans  had 
been  at  play;  clambered  up  mountain  sides,  the 
sport  of  avalanche  and  of  slide;  dared  the  limit- 
less land  without  horizon;  ground  his  teeth  upon 
the  bitter  dust  of  the  desert;  fainted  beneath  the 
flail  of  the  raw  and  ruthless  sun;  starved,  thirsted, 
fought;  was  cast  down  but  never  broken;  and  he 
never  turned  back. 

Here  he  stands  at  last  beside  this  western  sea, 
the  incarnate  soul  of  his  insatiable  race  —  the 
American  pioneer. 

Pity?     He  scorns  it. 

Glory?     He  does  not  ask  it. 

His  sons  and  his  daughters  are  scattered  along 
the  path  he  has  come. 

Each  fence  post  tells  where  some  one  fell. 

Each  farm,  brightened  now  with  the  first  smile 
of  Spring,  was  once  a  battlefield,  where  men  and 
women  fought  the  choking  horrors  of  starvation 
and  isolation. 


THE  AMERICAN  PIONEER         19 

His  Is  this  one  glory  —  he  found  the  way ;  his 
the  adventure. 

It  is  life  that  he  felt,  life  that  compelled  him. 

That  strange,  mysterious  thing  that  lifted  him 
out  of  the  primeval  muck  and  sent  him  climbing 
upward  —  that  same  strange  thing  has  pressed 
him  onward,  held  out  new  visions  to  his  wonder- 
ing eyes,  and  sung  new  songs  into  his  welcoming 
ears. 

And  why? 

In  his  long  wandering  he  has  had  time  to  think. 

He  has  talked  with  the  stars,  and  they  have 
taught  him  not  to  ask  why. 

He  is  here. 

He  has  seated  himself  upon  the  golden  sand  of 
this  distant  shore  and  has  said  to  himself  that  it  is 
time  for  him  to  gather  his  sons  about  him  that 
they  may  talk;  that  they  may  tell  tales  of  things 
done. 

Here  on  this  stretch  of  shore  he  has  built  the 
outermost  camp  fire  of  his  race  and  has  gathered 
his  sons  that  they  may  tell  each  other  of  the 
progress  they  have  made  —  utter  man's  prayers, 
things  done  for  man. 


20  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

His  sons  are  they  who  have  cut  these  continents 
In  twain,  who  have  slashed  God's  world  as  with  a 
knife,  who  have  gleefully  made  the  rebellious  seas 
to  lift  man's  ship  across  the  barrier  mountains  of 
Panama. 

This  thing  the  sons  of  the  pioneer  have  done  — 
it  is  their  prayer,  a  thing  done  for  man. 

And  here,  too,  these  sons  of  the  pioneer  will 
tell  of  other  things  they  do  —  how  they  fill  the 
night  with  jeweled  light  conjured  from  the  melt- 
ing snows  of  the  far-off  mountains;  how  they  talk 
together  across  the  world  in  their  own  voices;  how 
they  baffle  the  eagles  in  their  flight  through  the 
air  and  make  their  way  within  the  spectral  gloom 
of  the  soundless  sea;  how  they  reach  into  the 
heavens  and  draw  down  food  out  of  the  air  to 
replenish  the  wasted  earth;  how  with  the  touch 
of  a  knife  they  convert  the  sinner  and  with  the 
touch  of  a  stone  dissolve  disease. 

These  things  and  more  have  they  done  in  these 
latter  days,  these  sons  of  the  pioneer. 

And  in  their  honor  he  has  fashioned  this  beau- 
tiful city  of  dreams  come  true. 

In  their  honor  has  he  hung  the  heavens  with 
flowers  and  added  new  stars  to  the  night. 


THE  AMERICAN  PIONEER         2i 

In  blue  and  gold,  In  scarlet  and  purple,  in  the 
green  of  the  shallow  sea  and  the  burnt  brown  of 
the  summer  hillside,  he  has  made  the  architecture 
of  the  centuries  to  march  before  their  eyes  in 
column,  colonnade,  and  court. 

We  have  but  to  anchor  his  quaint  covered 
wagon  to  the  soil  and  soon  it  rises  transformed 
into  the  vane  of  some  mighty  cathedral. 

For  after  all  Rome  and  Rheims,  Salisbury  and 
Seville  are  not  far  memories  to  the  pioneer. 

Here,  too,  in  this  city  of  the  new  nation  the 
pioneer  has  called  together  all  his  neighbors  that 
we  may  learn  one  of  the  other. 

We  are  to  live  together  side  by  side  for  all 
time. 

The  seas  are  but  a  highway  between  the  door- 
ways of  the  nations. 

We  are  to  know  each  other  and  to  grow  in 
mutual  understanding. 

Perhaps  strained  nerves  may  sometimes  fancy 
the  gesture  of  the  pioneer  to  be  abrupt,  and  his 
voice  we  know  has  been  hardened  by  the  winter 
winds. 

But  his  neighbors  will  soon  come  to  know  that 
he  has  no  hatred  in  his  heart,  for  he  is  without 


22  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

fear;  that  he  is  without  envy,  for  none  can  add  to 
his  wealth. 

The  long  journey  of  this  slight,  modest  figure 
that  stands  beside  the  oxen  is  at  an  end. 

The  waste  places  of  the  earth  have  been 
found. 

But  adventure  is  not  to  end. 

Here  in  his  house  will  be  taught  the  gospel  of 
an  advancing  democracy  —  strong,  valiant,  con- 
fident, conquering  —  upborne  and  typified  by  the 
independent,  venturesome  spirit  of  that  mystic 
materialist,  the  American  pioneer. 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  NEIGHBORS 

Remarks  at  a  luncheon  to  the  American-Mexican  Joint 
Commission  at  the  Hotel  Biltmore,  New  York,  September 
4,  1916, 

We  are  here  primarily  to  advise  together  as  to 
the  methods  that  shall  be  taken  to  protect  that  in- 
visible line  which  is  drawn  between  the  United 
States  and  Mexico  and  is  known  to  us  as  the  Mexi- 
can border.  National  boundaries  are  natural 
things  when  they  stand  for  differences  in  people, 
in  forms  of  government,  in  traditions  and  in  as- 
pirations. They  are  unnatural  when  created 
alone  by  force.  The  border  between  our  coun- 
tries is  one  that  has  its  justification  in  the  dis- 
tinctions that  exist  between  your  people  and  ours. 
This  whole  round  world  has  been  broken  up  and 
divided  between  the  various  families  of  men  who 
make  up  mankind.  You  have  your  allotment,  we 
have  ours.  And  in  the  days  of  old  there  was  no 
passing  between.  The  one  family  was  in  hos- 
tility to  all  others,  and  nations  in  fencing  them- 

23 


24  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

selves  about  not  only  protected  themselves  against 
intrusion  from  their  enemies,  but  made  it  impos- 
sible to  gain  the  many  benefits  which  come  from 
contact  with  different  nationalities.  This  isola- 
tion is  no  longer  possible.  And  nations  to-day 
must  learn  and  live  by  the  standards  of  each 
other.  That  is  the  purpose  of  this  conference, 
to  let  you  know  what  lies  this  side  of  that  border, 
—  not  the  mere  physical  strength  of  the  political 
organization  that  constitutes  the  United  States, 
but  the  spirit  of  our  people  and  their  attitude  to- 
ward you,  and  in  turn  to  learn  from  you  what  lies 
behind  those  troubles  which  have  disturbed  you 
and  which  have  given  you  such  years  of  distress. 
We  wish  to  learn  your  mind  and  your  feeling, 
your  purpose  and  your  conception  of  yourselves  in 
relation  to  us  and  all  the  world.  For  we  are  to 
live  together  side  by  side,  as  neighbors,  for  all 
time!  It  is  inconceivable  that  the  conditions 
which  now  prevail  shall  obtain  indefinitely  or  for 
any  period.  You  do  not  wish  it  and  neither  do 
we.  That  border  must  become  once  again  what 
for  many  years  it  was,  a  line  of  division  between 
two  peoples,  each  of  which  was  working  its  own 
way  toward  the  realization  of  the  principles  which 


THE  RIGHTS  OF  NEIGHBORS      25 

we  believe  were  laid  down  in  that  Declaration  of 
Independence,  which  was  the  foundation  of  our 
Constitution  and  of  yours.  Mexico  has  sent  you  \ 
as  among  her  most  distinguished  sons  to  treat 
with  us  on  practical  matters  in  practical  fashion. 
I  trust  we  shall  talk  not  as  theorists,  but  as  men 
of  affairs,  of  a  large  view,  who  wish  for  nothing 
but  the  honor  and  rights  that  are  naturally  ours 
by  reason  of  the  accepted  principles  which  govern 
these  great  national  families,  and  which  ulti- 
mately come  out  of  the  consciences  of  fair-dealing 
men. 

Our  people  have  gone  among  you  in  confidence, 
and  entered  into  the  development  of  your  country 
with  an  enthusiasm  as  great  as  that  they  have 
shown  in  the  United  States.  Their  lives  and 
their  fortunes  are  sacred  to  us,  and  wrongs  done 
to  them  would  react  against  you  even  though  the 
United  States  never  raised  its  hand  nor  sent  a 
man  across  your  border;  for  you  are  to  live  be- 
side us  always  and  the  Mexican  who  does  us 
wrong  does  a  greater  wrong  to  Mexico.  y 

There  is  a  large  part  of  this  country  which  has 
a  traditional  and  sentimental  attachment  to 
Mexico.     No  name  is  more  honored  in  our  west- 


26  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

ern  history  than  that  of  Junlpero  Serra,  explorer, 
teacher,  padre,  who  brought  with  him  from 
Mexico  the  vine  and  the  fig,  who  turned  the  In- 
dians into  artisans  and  by  irrigation  first  turned 
our  deserts  into  fertile  fields.  You  come  fresh 
from  a  revolution  not  yet  completed,  which  had 
its  beginning  long  ago  when  the  church  bells  of 
Dolores  were  rung  by  Hidalgo  and  the  cry  went 
up  "  Long  live  America  and  down  with  bad  gov- 
ernment." Surely  men  of  such  tradition  should 
meet  with  but  one  purpose  —  the  welfare  of  the 
lands  in  which  they  live.  My  colleagues  and  I 
shall  ask  nothing  from  you  save  that  which  men 
can  grant  who  respect  the  principles  which  you  and 
your  ancestors  have  fought  for,  and  you  can  ask 
nothing  from  us  for  which  your  patriots  fought 
that  we  will  not  be  willing  to  grant.  We  say,  let 
Mexico  make  herself  in  her  own  way.  Let  her 
people  rise  to  the  high  dignity  and  power  of  which 
they  are  capable.  As  neighbors  we  will  respect 
your  rights.  As  neighbors  we  shall  expect  you  to 
respect  ours.  Surely  with  those  principles  in 
their  hearts  six  men  can  find  a  way  to  save  the 
honor  and  interest  of  both  Mexico  and  the  United 
States. 


U- 


FRUITS  OF  FAITH 

Address  at  the  opening  of  the  Panama-California  In- 
ternational Exposition  at  San  Diego,  California,  March 
i8,  1916. 

I  know  that  those  of  you  who  are  Californlans 
will  sympathize  with  the  feeling  of  elation  that  I 
have  in  coming  home  and  bringing  to  you  the  per- 
sonal greetings  of  the  First  Citizen  of  our  coun- 
try. The  time  will  surely  come  when  the  country 
will  call  to  its  first  place  a  son  of  California,  but 
until  that  time  does  come  no  greater  honor  can 
be  given  to  a  Californlan  than  to  speak  for  the 
President.  He  asked  me  to  give  you  his  greet- 
ing; not  a  perfunctory  word,  formal  and  set,  but 
a  word  of  hearty  cheer  at  the  spirit,  the  confi- 
dence and  the  courage  you  have  shown.  He  had 
Intended  to  make  this  trip  himself;  but  circum- 
stances, some  to  the  east  of  him  and  some  to  the 
south  of  him,  made  that  an  Impossibility.  It  is 
necessary  now,  above  all  times,  that  he  should  stay 
at  the  seat  of  government  that  the  nations  of  the 
world  may  know  that,  while  our  Army  may  be 

27 


28  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

small,  and  our  Navy  rank  but  third  in  the  world's 
calendar,  the  spirit  of  this  Democraqr  will  not 
permit  the  invasion  of  her  rights  either  upon  the 
land  or  upon  the  sea. 

It  is  a  great  burden  that  we  have  cast  upon  our 
President.  He  must  interpret  to  all  other  peo- 
ples the  sense  of  dignity,  of  self  respect,  and  of 
proper  pride  of  a  hundred  million  people  whose 
voice  he  can  not  hear,  but  whose  self-reliant  will 
he  must  assert.  Pitted  against  him  are  the 
trained  and  cunning  intellects  of  the  whole  world 
outside  our  hemisphere,  and  no  one  can  be  more 
conscious  than  Is  he  that  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile 
pride  and  patience.  I  give  you  his  greeting, 
therefore,  not  out  of  a  heart  that  is  joyous  and 
buoyant,  but  out  of  a  heart  that  is  grave  and  firm 
in  its  resolution  that  the  future  of  our  Republic 
and  of  all  republics  shall  not  be  put  in  peril. 

It  is  a  fine  thing  that  you  have  done  here.  You 
are  presenting  to  the  world  one  of  the  greatest  ex- 
positions ever  seen.  Not  so  great  perhaps  in  the 
multiplicity  of  machines  or  fabrics  or  works  of 
art;  not  so  costly  as  some,  but  no  exposition  ever 
presented  to  the  eyes  of  man  gave  proof  of  more 
daring  and  splendid  spirit.     And  after  all  it  is 


FRUITS  OF  FAITH  29 

the  spirit  of  the  man  or  of  the  thing  that  he  does 
which  makes  him  noble  or  mean. 

If  the  Patron  Saint  of  San  Diego,  the  Padre 
Serra,  could  cross  that  bridge  which  steps  the 
canyon  like  some  grand  dame  in  a  minuet  and 
mount  the  steps  of  that  church  and  look  out  of 
the  bell  tower  upon  this  city,  upon  those  red  roofs, 
those  cloisters  and  arcades,  those  turrets  and 
towers,  and  cast  his  eye  over  this  land  which  so 
lately  was  desert  and  which  now  is  the  rarest  of 
gardens,  I  believe  that  he  would  not  think  him- 
self demeaned  were  he  to  hear  me  say  that  the 
spirit  which  has  built  this  thing  of  beauty  was  like 
to  the  spirit  that  brought  him  to  this  shore  to 
win  a  people  and  a  country  for  the  glory  of  his 
God  and  his  King.  Men  are  the  creatures  of 
their  times,  and  he  was  bold  in  his  adventure  of 
the  eighteenth  century  as  you  are  bold  in  your 
adventure  of  the  twentieth  century.  If  he  heard 
men  say  this  is  an  age  of  the  grossest  materialism 
when  men  worship  only  money  and  have  souls  for 
things  no  nobler  than  trading  stamps,  I  believe 
he  would  point  at  what  you  have  done  and  say: 
*'  This  is  my  answer  to  that  charge.  Here  is  the 
proof  that  men  glory  in  beauty  and  in  the  work 


30  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

of  their  hands.  I  taught  my  Indian  boys  to  lay 
before  the  altar  tributes  of  fruits  and  flowers.  I 
taught  them  to  lead  the  stream  over  the  desert,  to 
make  it  bring  forth  vine  and  fig.  I  taught  them 
to  model  with  their  hands  the  cunning  arches  of 
our  Holy  Church.  I  taught  them  to  have  joy  in 
the  things  that  they  did  that  their  souls  might  be 
satisfied,  and  those  things  these  men  of  a  later  day 
have  done." 

You  call  this  an  international  exposition,  be- 
cause there  are  exhibited  here  the  products  of  the 
minds  and  fingers  of  some  thirty  or  more  nations. 
They  may  show  to  us  porcelains  and  silks,  pic- 
tures and  statues,  carvings  and  carpets,  finer  than 
any  that  we  can  show;  but  in  return  we  show  to 
them  a  continent  conquered  and  civilized  in  a 
century,  a  people  more  fertile  in  imagination  per- 
haps than  any  that  the  world  has  heretofore 
known,  and  enterprises  of  greater  magnitude 
than  Caesar  or  Napoleon  dreamed  of. 

This  is  a  fitting  place  for  such  an  exposition. 
We  stand  upon  the  rim  of  the  continent.  The 
Aryan  race  which  was  born  in  the  other  hemi- 
sphere has  encircled  the  globe  and  has  come  back 
to  report  to  its  wise  and  aged  Mother  the  story 


FRUITS  OF  FAITH  31 

of  its  great  adventure.  What  has  this  Nation  to 
say  to  those  who  lie  before  it  and  round  about  it? 
We  answer  that  we  have  come  to  know  that  this 
world  is  made  not  for  the  gratification  of  the  de- 
sire of  a  few  but  for  the  benefit  of  the  many. 
That  power  must  be  common  capital.  That  na- 
ture, not  man,  is  the  enemy  man  must  conquer, 
and  that  the  world  belongs  to  him  who  reclaims 
the  desert,  who  bores  the  mountains,  who  most 
swiftly  sails  the  sea  and  most  surely  masters  the 
air;  who  with  plow  and  microscope,  furnace  and 
blow-pipe,  test  tube  and  machine,  makes  this 
world  serve  mankind  best. 

To  conquer  Nature  man  broke  down  the  gates 
of  the  Garden  of  Eden  and  came  forth  to  meet 
the  challenge  of  an  unordered  world.  For  ten 
times  ten  thousand  years  he  has  been  engaged  in 
this  conquest.  Trench  after  trench  he  has  taken, 
hilltop  after  hilltop,  and  no  one  can  dare  to  say 
what  shall  be  the  limit  of  his  progress.  A  thou- 
sand years  hence  I  have  no  doubt  the  world  will 
see  another  international  exposition  beside  this 
very  Bay  and  then  will  realize  that  the  high  pur- 
pose of  Democracy  is  to  prove  it  is  the  conqueror 
of  the  world  by  being  its  supreme  servant. 


AMERICAN  TRADITION 

Address  delivered  at  the  University  of  VirginiOj  Feb* 
ruary  22,  jgi2^ 

It  has  not  been  an  easy  task  for  me  to  decide 
upon  a  theme  for  discussion  to-day.  I  know 
that  I  can  tell  you  little  of  Washington  that  would 
be  new,  and  the  thought  has  come  to  me  that  per- 
haps you  would  be  interested  in  what  might  be 
called  a  western  view  of  American  tradition,  for 
I  come  from  the  other  side  of  this  continent  where 
all  of  our  traditions  are  as  yet  articles  of  trans- 
continental traffic,  and  you  are  here  in  the  very 
heart  of  tradition,  the  sacred  seat  of  our  noblest 
memories. 

No  doubt  you  sometimes  think  that  we  are 
reckless  of  the  wisdom  of  our  forebears ;  while  we 
at  times  have  been  heard  to  say  that  you  live  too 
securely  in  that  passion  for  the  past  which  makes 
men  mellow  but  unmodern. 

When  you  see  the  West  adopting  or  urging 

1  Reprinted  from  the  University  of  Virginia  Alumni  Bulletin, 

32 


AMERICAN  TRADITION  33 

such  measures  as  presidential  primaries,  the  elec- 
tion of  United  States  Senators  by  popular  vote, 
the  initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall  as 
means  supplementary  to  representative  govern- 
ment, you  shudder  in  your  dignified  way  no  doubt, 
at  the  audacity  and  irreverence  of  your  crude 
countrymen.  They  must  be  in  your  eyes  as  far 
from  grace  as  that  American  who  visited  one  of 
the  ancient  temples  of  India.  After  a  long  jour- 
ney through  winding  corridors  of  marble,  he  was 
brought  to  a  single  flickering  light  set  In  a  jeweled 
recess  in  the  wall.  "  And  what  Is  this?  "  said  the 
tourist.  "  That,  sir,"  replied  the  guide,  *'  is  the 
sacred  fire  which  was  lighted  2,000  years  ago  and 
never  has  been  out."  "  Never  been  out?  What 
nonsense !  Poof  I  Well,  the  blamed  thing's  out 
now."  This  wild  Westerner  doubtless  typifies 
those  who  without  heed  and  in  their  hot-headed 
and  fanatical  worship  of  change  would  destroy 
the  very  light  of  our  civilization.  But  let  me 
remind  you  that  all  fanaticism  is  not  radical. 
There  Is  a  fanaticism  that  is  conservative,  a  rever- 
ence for  things  as  they  are  that  is  no  less  destruc- 
tive. Some  years  ago  I  visited  a  fishing  village  in 
Canada  peopled  by  Scotchnien  who  had  immi- 


34  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

grated  In  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
It  was  a  place  named  Ingonish  in  Cape  Breton,  a 
rugged  spot  that  looks  directly  upon  the  Atlantic 
at  its  crudest  point.  One  day  I  fell  into  talk 
with  a  fisherman  —  a  very  model  of  a  tawny- 
haired  viking.  He  told  me  that  from  his  fishing 
and  his  farming  he  made  some  $300  a  year. 
"  Why  not  come  over  into  my  country,"  I  said, 
"where  you  may  make  that  in  a  month?" 
There  came  over  his  face  a  look  of  humiliation  as 
he  replied,  "  No,  I  could  not."  "  Why  not?  "  I 
asked.  "  Because,"  said  he,  brushing  his  hand 
across  his  sea-burnt  beard,  "  because  I  can  neither 
read  nor  write."  *'  And  why,"  said  I,  "  haven't 
you  learned?  There  are  schools  here."  *' Yes, 
there  are  schools,  but  my  father  could  not  read  or 
write,  and  I  would  have  felt  that  I  was  putting  a 
shame  upon  the  old  man  if  I  had  learned  to  do 
something  he  could  not  do."  Splendid,  wasn't  it! 
He  would  not  do  what  his  father  could  not  do. 
Fine !  Fine  as  the  spirit  of  any  man  with  a  sen- 
timent which  holds  him  back  from  leading  a  full, 
rich  life.  Yet  can  you  conceive  a  nation  of  such 
men  —  idolizing  what  has  been,  blind  to  the  great 
vision  of  the  future,  fettered  by  the  chains  of  the 


AxMERICAN  TRADITION  35 

past,  gripped  and  held  fast  in  the  hand  of  the 
dead,  a  nation  of  traditionalists,  unable  to  meet 
the  needs  of  a  new  day,  serene,  no  doubt  self-suffi- 
cient, but  coming  how  far  short  of  realizing  that 
ideal  of  those  who  praise  their  God  for  that  they 
serve  his  world  I 

I  have  given  the  two  extremes;  now  let  us  re- 
turn to  our  point  of  departure,  and  the  first  ques- 
tion to  be  asked  is,  "  What  are  the  traditions  of 
our  people?  '*  This  nation  is  not  as  it  was  one 
hundred  and  thirty-odd  years  ago  when  we  as- 
serted the  traditional  right  of  Anglo-Saxons  to 
rebel  against  injustice.  We  have  traveled  cen- 
turies and  centuries  since  then  —  measured  in 
events,  in  achievements,  in  depth  of  insight  into 
the  secrets  of  nature,  in  breadth  of  view,  in 
sweep  of  sympathy,  and  in  the  rise  of  ennobling 
hope.  Physically  we  are  to-day  nearer  to  China 
than  we  were  then  to  Ohio.  Socially,  indus- 
trially, commercially  the  wide  world  is  almost  a 
unit.  And  these  thirteen  states  have  spread 
across  a  continent  to  which  have  been  gathered 
the  peoples  of  the  earth.  We  are  the  "  heirs  of 
all  the  ages.''  Our  Inheritance  of  tradition  Is 
greater  than  that  of  any  other  people,   for  we 


^ 


36  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

trace  back  not  alone  to  King  John  signing  the 
Magna  Charta  in  that  little  stone  hut  by  the  river 
side,  but  to  Brutus  standing  beside  the  slain  Cae- 
sar, to  Charles  Martel  with  his  battle  ax  raised 
against  the  advancing  horde  of  an  old-world 
civilization,  to  Martin  Luther  declaring  his 
square-jawed  policy  of  religious  liberty,  to  Colum- 
bus in  the  prow  of  his  boat  crying  to  his  dis- 
heartened crew,  *'  Sail  on,  sail  on,  and  on !  " 
Irishman,  Greek,  Slav,  and  Sicilian  —  all  the  na- 
tions of  the  world  have  poured  their  hopes  and 
their  history  into  this  great  melting  pot,  and  the 
product  will  be  —  in  fact,  is  —  a  civilization  that 
is  new  in  the  sense  that  it  is  the  blend  of  many, 
and  yet  is  as  old  as  the  Egyptians. 

Surely  the  real  tradition  of  such  a  people  is  not 
any  one  way  of  doing  a  certain  thing;  certainly 
not  any  set  and  unalterable  plan  of  procedure  in 
affairs,  nor  even  any  fixed  phrase  expressive  of  a 
general  philosophy  unless  it  comes  from  the  uni- 
versal heart  of  this  strange  new  people.  Why 
are  we  here?  What  is  our  purpose?  These 
questions  will  give  you  the  tradition  of  the  Amer- 
ican people,  our  supreme  tradition  —  the  one  into 
which  all  others  fall,  and  a  part  of  which  they  are 


AMERICAN  TRADITION  37 

—  the  right  of  man  to  oppose  injustice.     There 
follow  from  this  the  right  of  man  to  govern  him-  i 
self,  the  right  of  property  and  to  personal  liberty, 
the  right  to  freedom  of  speech,  the  right  to  make  j 
of  himself  all  that  nature  will  permit,  the  right  f 
to  be  one  of  many  in  creating  a  national  life  that  { 
will  realize  those  hopes  which  singly  could  notj 
be  achieved. 

Is  there  any  other  tradition  so  sacred  as  this  — 
so  much  a  part  of  ourselves  —  this  hatred  of  in- 
justice? It  carries  in  its  bosom  all  the  past  that 
inspires  our  people.  Their  spirit  of  unrest  under 
wrong  has  lighted  the  way  for  the  nations  of  the 
world.  It  is  not  seen  alone  in  Kansas  and  in  Cali- 
fornia, but  in  England,  where  a  Liberal  Ministry 
has  made  a  beginning  at  the  restoration  of  the 
land  to  the  people ;  in  Germany,  where  the  citizen 
Is  fighting  his  way  up  to  power;  in  Portugal,  where 
a  university  professor  sits  in  the  chair  a  king  so 
lately  occupied;  in  Russia,  emerging  from  the 
Middle  Ages,  with  her  groping  Douma;  in  Per- 
sia, from  which  young  Shuster  was  so  recently 
driven  for  trying  to  give  to  a  people  a  sense  of 
national  self-respect;  in  India,  where  an  Emperor 
moves  a  national  capital  to  pacify  submerged  dis- 


38  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

content;  and  even  in  far  Cathay,  the  mystery  land 
of  Marco  Polo,  immobile,  phlegmatic,  individ- 
ualistic China,  men  have  been  waging  war  for  the 
philosophy  incorporated  in  the  first  ten  lines  of 
our  Declaration  of  Independence. 

Here  is  the  effect  of  a  tradition  that  is  real, 
not  a  mere  group  of  words  or  a  well-fashioned  bit 
of  governmental  machinery  —  real  because  it  is 
ours;  it  has  come  out  of  our  life;  for  the  only 
real  traditions  a  people  have  are  those  beliefs  that 
have  become  a  part  of  them,  like  the  good  man- 
ners of  a  gentleman.  They  are  really  our  sympa- 
thies —  sympathies  born  of  experience.  Subjec- 
tively they  give  standpoint;  objectively  they  fur- 
nish background  —  a  rich,  deep  background  like 
that  of  some  master  of  light  and  shade,  some 
Rembrandt,  whose  picture  is  one  great  glowing 
mystery  of  darkness  save  in  a  central  spot  of  radi- 
ant light  where  stands  a  single  figure  or  group 
which  holds  the  eye  and  enchants  the  imagination. 
History  may  give  to  us  the  one  bright  face  to  look 
upon,  but  in  the  deep  mystery  of  the  background 
the  real  story  is  told;  for  therein,  to  those  who 
can  see,  are  the  groping  multitudes  feeling  their 
way  blindly  toward  the  light  of  self-expression. 


AMERICAN  TRADITION  39 

Now,  this  Is  a  western  view  of  tradition;  It  Is 
yours,  too;  it  was  yours  first;  it  was  your  gift  to 
us.  And  is  it  impertinent  to  ask,  when  your  sen- 
sibilities are  shocked  at  some  departure  from  the 
conventional  in  our  western  law,  that  you  search 
the  tradition  of  your  own  history  to  know  in  what 
spirit  and  by  what  method  the  gods  of  the  elder 
days  met  the  wrongs  they  wished  to  right?  It 
may  be  that  we  ask  too  many  questions;  that  we 
are  unwilling  to  accept  anything  as  settled;  that 
we  are  curious,  distrustful,  and  as  relentlessly 
logical  as  a  child. 

For  what  are  we  but  creatures  of  the  night 

Led  forth  by  day, 
Who  needs  must  falter,  and  with  stammering  steps 
Spell  out  our  paths  in  syllables  of  pain  ? 

There  are  no  grown-ups  in  this  new  world  of 
democracy.  We  are  trying  an  experiment  such 
as  the  world  has  never  seen.  Here  we  are,  so 
many  million  people  at  work  making  a  living  as 
best  we  can;  90,000,000  people  covering  half  a 
continent  —  rich,  respected,  feared.  Is  that  all 
we  are?  Is  that  why  we  are?  To  be  rich,  re- 
spected, feared?  Or  have  we  some  part  to  play 
in   working    out    the    problems    of    this   world? 


40  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

Why  should  one  man  have  so  much  and  many  so 
littie  ?  How  may  the  many  secure  a  larger  share 
in  the  wealth  which  they  create  without  destroy- 
ing individual  initiative  or  blasting  individual 
capacity  and  imagination?  It  was  inevitable  that 
these  questions  should  be  asked  when  this  repub- 
lic was  established.  Man  has  been  struggling 
to  have  the  right  to  ask  these  questions  for  4,000 
years;  and  now  that  he  has  the  right  to  ask  any 
questions  surely  we  may  not  with  reason  expect 
him  to  be  silent.  It  is  no  answer  to  make  that 
men  were  not  asking  these  questions  a  hundred 
years  ago.  So  great  has  been  our  physical  en- 
dowment that  until  the  most  recent  years  we  have 
been  indifferent  as  to  the  share  which  each  re- 
ceived of  the  wealth  produced.  We  could  then 
accept  cheerfully  the  coldest  and  most  logical  of 

T economic  theories.  But  now  men  are  wondering 
as  to  the  future.  There  may  be  much  of  envy 
and  more  of  malice  in  current  thought;  but  under- 
neath it  all  there  is  the  feeling  that  if  a  nation  Is 
to  have  a  full  life  it  must  devise  methods  by  which 
its  citizens  shall  be  Insured  against  monopoly 
of  opportunity.  This  is  the  meaning  of  many 
policies  the  full  philosophy  of  which  is  not  gen- 


AMERICAN  TRADITION  41 

erally  grasped  —  the  regulation  of  railroads  and 
other  public  service  corporations,  the  conserva- 
tion of  natural  resources,  the  leasing  of  public 
lands  and  waterpowers,  the  control  of  great  com- 
binations of  wealth.  How  these  movements  will 
eventually  express  themselves  none  can  foretell, 
but  in  the  process  there  will  be  some  who  will  dog- 
matically contend  that  "  Whatever  is,  is  right," 
and  others  who  will  march  under  the  red  flag  of 
revenge  and  exspoliation.  And  in  that  day  we 
must  look  for  men  to  meet  the  false  cry  of  both 
sides  — *'  gentlemen  unafraid  "  who  will  neither 
be  the  money-hired  butlers  of  the  rich  nor  power-  . 
loving  panderers  to  the  poor.  _„J.,^ 

Assume  the  right  of  self-government  and  so-  / 
ciety  becomes  the  scene  of  an  heroic  struggle  for  { 
the  realization  of  justice.  Take  from  the  one 
strong  man  the  right  to  rule  and  make  others 
serve,  the  right  to  take  all  and  hold  all,  the  power 
to  grant  or  to  withhold,  and  you  have  set  all  men 
to  asking,  "  What  should  I  have,  and  what  should 
my  children  have?"  and  with  this  come  all  the 
perils  of  innovation  and  the  hazards  of  revolu-  . 

tion.  ^^^;;;;^ 

To  meet  such  a  situation  the  traditionalist  who 


l77 


42  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

believes  that  the  last  word  In  politics  or  in  eco- 
nomics was  uttered  a  century  ago  is  as  far  from 
the  truth  as  he  who  holds  that  the  temporary 
emotion  of  the  public  is  the  stone-carved  word 
from  Sinai. 
*^"'  A  railroad  people  are  not  to  be  controlled  by 
ox-team  theories,  declaims  the  young  enthusiast 
for  change.  An  age  that  dares  to  tell  of  what  the 
stars  are  made;  that  weighs  the  very  suns  in  its 
balances;  that  mocks  the  birds  in  their  flight 
through  the  air,  and  the  fish  in  their  dart  through 
the  sea;  that  transforms  the  falling  stream  into 
fire,  light,  and  music;  that  embalms  upon  a  piece 
of  plate  the  tenderest  tones  of  the  human  voice; 
that  treats  disease  with  disease;  that  supplies  a 
new  ear  with  the  same  facility  that  it  replaces  a 
blown-out  tire;  that  reaches  into  the  very  grave 
itself  and  starts  again  the  silent  heart  —  surely 
such  an  age  may  be  allowed  to  think  for  itself 
somewhat  upon  questions  of  politics. 

Yet  with  all  our  searchlngs  and  our  problngs, 
who  knows  more  of  the  human  heart  to-day  than 
the  old  Psalmist?  And  what  is  the  problem  of 
government  but  one  of  human  nature?     What 


AMERICAN  TRADITION  43 

Burbank  has  as  yet  made  grapes  to  grow  on 
thorns  or  figs  on  thistles  ?  The  riddle  of  the  uni- 
verse is  no  nearer  solution  than  it  was  when  the 
sphinx  first  looked  upon  the  Nile.  The  one  con- 
stant and  inconstant  quantity  with  which  man  must 
deal  is  man.  Human  nature  responds  so  far  as 
we  can  see  to  the  same  magnetic  pull  and  push 
that  moved  it  in  the  days  of  Abraham  and  of  Soc- 
rates. The  foundation  of  government  is  man — * 
changing,  inert,  impulsive,  limited,  sympathetic, 
selfish  man.  His  institutions,  whether  social  or 
pohtical,  must  come  out  of  his  wants  and  out  of 
his  capacities.  The  problem  of  government, 
therefore,  is  not  always  what  should  be  done  but 
what  can  be  done.  We  may  not  follow  the  su- 
preme tradition  of  the  race  to  create  a  newer, 
sweeter  world  unless  we  give  heed  to  its  comple- 
mentary tradition  that  man's  experience  cautions 
him  to  make  a  new  trail  with  care.  He  must  curb 
courage  with  common-sense.  He  may  lay  his 
first  bricks  upon  the  twentieth  story,  but  not  until 
he  has  made  sure  of  the  solidity  of  the  frame 
below.  The  real  tradition  of  our  people  permits 
the  mason  to  place  brick  upon  brick  wherever  he 


b 


44  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

finds  it  most  convenient,  safest  and  most  econom- 
ical; but  he  must  not  mistake  thin  air  for  struc- 
tural steel. 

Let  me  illustrate  the  thought  that  I  would  leave 
with  you  by  the  description  of  one  of  our  western 
railroads.  Your  train  sweeps  across  the  desert 
like  some  bold  knight  in  a  joust,  and  when  about 
to  drive  recklessly  into  a  sheer  cliff  it  turns  a 
graceful  curve  and  follows  up  the  wild  meander- 
ings  of  a  stream  until  it  reaches  a  ridge  along 
which  it  finds  its  flinty  way  for  many  miles.  At 
length  you  come  face  to  face  with  a  great  gulf,  a 
canyon  —  yawning,  resounding  and  purple  in  its 
depths.  Before  you  lies  a  path,  zigzagging  down 
the  canyon's  side  to  the  very  bottom,  and  away 
beyond  another  slighter  trail  climbs  up  upon  the 
opposite  side.  Which  is  our  way?  Shall  we  fol- 
low the  old  trail?  The  answer  comes  as  the  train 
shoots  out  across  a  bridge  and  into  a  tunnel  on  the 
opposite  side,  coming  out  again  upon  the  highlands 
and  looking  into  the  Valley  of  Heart's  Desire 
where  the  wistful  Rasselas  might  have  lived. 

When  you  or  I  look  upon  that  stretch  of  steel 
we  wonder  at  the  daring  of  its  builders.  Great 
men  they  were  who  boldly  built  that  road  —  great 


AMERICAN  TRADITION  45 

in  imagination,  greater  in  their  deeds  —  for  they 
were  men  so  great  that  they  did  not  build  upon  a 
line  that  was  without  tradition.  The  route  they 
followed  was  made  by  the  buffalo  and  the  elk  ten 
thousand  years  ago.  The  bear  and  the  deer  fol- 
lowed it  generation  after  generation,  and  after 
them  came  the  trapper,  and  then  the  pioneer.  It 
was  already  a  trail  when  the  railroad  engineer 
came  with  transit  and  chain  seeking  a  path  for 
the  great  black  stallion  of  steel. 

Up  beside  the  stream  and  along  the  ridge  the 
track  was  laid.  But  there  was  no  thought  of  fol- 
lowing the  old  trail  downward  into  the  canyon. 
Then  the  spirit  of  the  new  age  broke  through  tra- 
dition, the  canyon  was  leaped  and  the  mountain's 
heart  pierced,  that  man  might  have  a  swifter  and 
safer  way  to  the  Valley  of  Heart's  Desire. 


WHY  DO  WE  FIGHT  GERMANY? 

Address  delivered  before  the  Home  Club,  Interior 
Department,  Washington,  D,  C,  June  4,  1917. 

To-morrow  is  registration  day.  It  is  the  duty 
of  all,  their  legal  as  well  as  their  patriotic  duty, 
to  register  if  within  the  class  called.  There 
are  some  who  have  not  clearly  seen  the  reason  for 
that  call.     To  these  I  would  speak  a  word. 

Why  are  we  fighting  Germany?  The  brief 
answer  is  that  ours  is  a  war  of  self-defense.  We 
did  not  wish  to  fight  Germany.  She  made  the 
attack  upon  us;  not  on  our  shores,  but  on  our 
ships,  our  lives,  our  rights,  our  future.  For  two 
years  and  more  we  held  to  a  neutrality  that  made 
us  apologists  for  things  which  outraged  man's 
common  sense  of  fair  play  and  humanity.  At 
each  new  offense  —  the  invasion  of  Belgium,  the 
killing  of  civilian  Belgians,  the  attacks  on  Scar- 
borough and  other  defenseless  towns,  the  laying 
of  mines  in  neutral  waters,  the  fencing  off  of  the 
seas  —  and  on  and  on  through  the  months  we 

46 


WHY  DO  WE  FIGHT  GERMANY^     47 

said:  "This  is  war  —  archaic,  uncivilized  war, 
but  war!  All  rules  have  been  thrown  away;  all 
nobility;  man  has  come  down  to  the  primitive 
brute.  And  while  we  cannot  justify  we  will  not 
intervene.     It  is  not  our  war." 

Then  why  are  we  in?  Because  we  could  not 
keep  out.  The  invasion  of  Belgium,  which 
opened  the  war,  led  to  the  invasion  of  the  United 
States  by  slow,  steady,  logical  steps.  Our  sym- 
pathies evolved  into  a  conviction  of  self-interest. 
Our  love  of  fair  play  ripened  into  alarm  at  our 
own  peril. 

We  talked  in  the  language  and  in  the  spirit 
of  good  faith  and  sincerity,  as  honest  men  should 
talk,  until  we  discovered  that  our  talk  was  con- 
strued as  cowardice.  And  Mexico  was  called 
upon  to  cow  us  I  We  talked  as  men  would  talk 
who  cared  alone  for  peace  and  the  advancement 
of  their  own  material  interests,  until  we  discov- 
ered that  we  were  thought  to  be  a  nation  of  mere 
money  makers,  devoid  of  all  character  —  until, 
indeed,  we  were  told  that  we  could  not  walk  the 
highways  of  the  world  without  permission  of  a 
Prussian  soldier,  that  our  ships  might  not  sail 
without  wearing  a  striped  uniform  of  humiliation 


48  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT  ^ 

upon  a  narrow  path  of  national  subservience. 
We  talked  as  men  talk  who  hope  for  honest  agree- 
ment, not  for  war,  until  we  found  that  the  treaty 
torn  to  pieces  at  Liege  was  but  the  symbol  of  a 
policy  that  made  agreements  worthless  against  a 
purpose  that  knew  no  word  but  success. 

And  so  we  came  into  this  war  for  ourselves. 
It  is  a  war  to  save  America  —  to  preserve  self- 
respect,  to  justify  our  right  to  live  as  we  have 
lived,  not  as  some  one  else  wishes  us  to  live.  In 
the  name  of  freedom  we  challenge  with  ships  and 
men,  money,  and  an  undaunted  spirit,  that  word 
"  Verboten  "  which  Germany  has  written  upon  the 
sea  and  upon  the  land.  For  America  is  not  the 
name  of  so  much  territory.  It  is  a  living  spirit, 
born  in  travail,  grown  in  the  rough  school  of  bit- 
ter experiences,  a  living  spirit  which  has  purpose 
and  pride  and  conscience  —  knows  why  it  wishes 
to  live  and  to  what  end,  knows  how  it  comes  to  be 
respected  of  the  world,  and  hopes  to  retain  that 
respect  by  living  on  with  the  light  of  Lincoln's 
love  of  man  as  its  old  and  new  testament.  It  is 
more  precious  that  this  America  should  live  than 
that  we  Americans  should  live.  And  this  Amer- 
ica as  we  now  see  has  been  challenged  from  the 


WHY  DO  WE  FIGHT  GERMANY  *?    49 

first  of  this  war  by  the  strong  arm  of  a  power  that 
has  no  sympathy  with  our  purpose,  and  will  not 
hesitate  to  destroy  us  if  the  law  that  we  respect, 
the  rights  that  are  to  us  sacred,  or  the  spirit  that 
we  have,  stand  across  her  set  will  to  make  this 
world  bow  before  her  policies,  backed  by  her  or- 
ganized and  scientific  military  system.  The 
world  of  Christ  —  a  neglected  but  not  a  rejected 
Christ  —  has  come  again  face  to  face  with  the 
world  of  Mahomet,  who  willed  to  win  by  force. 

With  this  background  of  history  and  in  this 
sense,  then,  we  fight  Germany  — 

Because  of  Belgium  —  invaded,  outraged,  en- 
slaved, impoverished  Belgium.  We  can  not  for- 
get Liege,  Louvain,  and  Cardinal  Mercier. 
Translated  into  terms  of  American  history  these 
names  stand  for  Bunker  Hill,  Lexington,  and  Pat- 
rick Henry. 

Because  of  France  —  invaded,  desecrated 
France,  a  million  of  whose  heroic  sons  have  died 
to  save  the  land  of  Lafayette.  Glorious  golden 
France,  the  preserver  of  the  arts,  the  land  of  noble 
spirit.  The  first  land  to  follow  our  lead  into  re- 
publican liberty. 

Because  of  England  —  from  whom  came  the 


50  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

laws,  traditions,  standards  of  life,  and  inherent 
love  of  liberty  which  we  call  Anglo-Saxon  civiliza- 
tion. We  defeated  her  once  upon  the  land  and 
once  upon  the  sea.  But  Australia,  New  Zealand, 
Africa,  and  Canada  are  free  because  of  what  we 
did.  And  they  are  with  us  in  the  fight  for  the 
freedom  of  the  seas. 

Because  of  Russia  —  New  Russia.  She  must 
not  be  overwhelmed  now.  Not  now,  surely, 
when  she  is  just  born  into  freedom.  Her  peas- 
ants must  have  their  chance;  they  must  go  to 
school  to  Washington,  to  Jefferson,  and  to  Lin- 
coln, until  they  know  their  way  about  in  this  new, 
strange  world,  of  government  by  the  popular  will. 

Because  of  other  peoples,  with  their  rising 
hope  that  the  world  may  be  freed  from  govern- 
ment by  the  soldier. 

We  are  fighting  Germany  because  she  sought 
to  terrorize  us  and  then  to  fool  us.  We  could  not 
believe  that  Germany  would  do  what  she  said  she 
would  do  upon  the  seas. 

We  still  hear  the  piteous  cries  of  children  com- 
ing up  out  of  the  sea  where  the  Lus'itania  went 
down.  And  Germany  has  never  asked  forgive- 
ness of  the  world. 


WHY  DO  WE  FIGHT  GERMANY^    51 

We  saw  the  Sussex  sunk,  crowded  with  the 
sons  and  daughters  of  neutral  nations. 

We  saw  ship  after  ship  sent  to  the  bottom  — 
ships  of  mercy  bound  out  of  America  for  the  Bel- 
gian starving;  ships  carrying  the  Red  Cross  and 
laden  with  the  wounded  of  all  nations;  ships  car- 
rying food  and  clothing  to  friendly,  harmless, 
terrorized  peoples;  ships  flying  the  Stars  and 
Stripes  —  sent  to  the  bottom  hundreds  of  miles 
from  shore,  manned  by  American  seamen,  mur- 
dered against  all  law,  without  warning. 

We  believed  Germany's  promise  that  she 
would  respect  the  neutral  flag  and  the  rights  of 
neutrals,  and  we  held  our  anger  and  outrage  in 
check.  But  now  we  see  that  she  was  holding  us 
off  with  fair  promises  until  she  could  build  her 
huge  fleet  of  submarines.  For  when  spring  came 
she  blew  her  promise  into  the  air,  just  as  at  the 
beginning  she  had  torn  up  that  "  scrap  of  paper." 
Then  we  saw  clearly  that  there  was  but  one  law 
for  Germany  —  her  will  to  rule. 

We  are  fighting  Germany  because  she  vio- 
lated our  confidence.  Paid  German  spies  filled 
our  cities.  Officials  of  her  Government,  received 
as  the  guests  of  this  Nation,  lived  with  us  to  bribe 


52  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

and  terrorize,  defying  our  law  and  the  law  of 
nations. 

We  are  fighting  Germany  because  while  we 
were  yet  her  friends  —  the  only  great  power  that 
still  held  hands  off  —  she  sent  the  Zimmermann 
note,  calling  to  her  aid  Mexico,  our  southern 
neighbor,  and  hoping  to  lure  Japan,  our  western 
neighbor,  into  war  against  this  nation  of  peace. 

The  nation  that  would  do  these  things  pro- 
claims the  gospel  that  government  has  no  con- 
science. And  this  doctrine  can  not  live,  or  else 
democracy  must  die.  For  the  nations  of  the 
world  must  keep  faith.  There  can  be  no  living 
for  us  in  a  world  where  the  state  has  no  con- 
science, no  reverence  for  the  things  of  the  spirit, 
no  respect  for  international  law,  no  mercy  for 
those  who  fall  before  its  force.  What  an  unor- 
dered world!  Anarchy  I  The  anarchy  of  rival 
wolf  packs  I 

We  are  fighting  Germany  because  in  this  war 
feudalism  is  making  its  last  stand  against  on- 
coming democracy.  We  see  it  now.  This  is  a 
war  against  an  old  spirit,  an  ancient,  outworn 
spirit.  It  is  a  war  against  feudalism  —  the  right 
of  the  castle  on  the  hill  to  rule  the  village  below. 


WHY  DO  WE  FIGHT  GERMANY*?     53 

It  is  a  war  for  democracy  —  the  right  of  all  to  be 
their  own  masters.  Let  Germany  be  feudal  if 
she  will,  but  she  must  not  spread  her  system  over 
a  world  that  has  outgrown  it.  Feudahsm  plus 
science,  thirteenth  century  plus  twentieth  —  this  is 
the  religion  of  the  mistaken  Germany  that  has 
linked  itself  with  the  Turk,  that  has,  too,  adopted 
the  method  of  Mahomet.  "  The  state  has  no 
conscience."  "  The  state  can  do  no  wrong." 
With  the  spirit  of  the  fanatic  she  believes  this 
gospel  and  that  it  is  her  duty  to  spread  it  by  force. 
With  poison  gas  that  makes  living  a  hell,  with 
submarines  that  sneak  through  the  seas  slyly  to 
murder  noncombatants,  with  dirigibles  that  bom- 
bard men  and  women  while  they  sleep,  with  a  per- 
fected system  of  terrorization  that  the  modern 
world  first  heard  of  when  German  troops  entered 
China,  German  feudalism  is  making  war  upon 
mankind.  Let  this  old  spirit  of  evil  have  its  way 
and  no  man  will  live  in  America  without  paying 
toll  to  it  in  manhood  and  in  money.  This  spirit 
might  demand  Canada  from  a  defeated,  navyless 
England,  and  then  our  dream  of  peace  on  the 
north  would  be  at  an  end.  We  would  live,  as 
France  has  lived  for  forty  years,  in  haunting  terror. 


54  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

America  speaks  for  the  world  in  fighting  Ger- 
many. Mark  on  a  map  those  countries  which  are 
Germany's  allies  and  you  will  mark  but  four,  run- 
ning from  the  Baltic  through  Austria  and  Bul- 
garia to  Turkey.  All  the  other  nations  the  whole 
globe  around  are  in  arms  against  her  or  are  un- 
able to  move.  There  is  deep  meaning  in  this. 
We  fight  with  the  world  for  an  honest  world  in 
which  nations  keep  their  word,  for  a  world  in 
which  nations  do  not  live  by  swagger  or  by  threat, 
for  a  world  in  which  men  think  of  the  ways  in 
which  they  can  conquer  the  common  cruelties  of 
nature  instead  of  inventing  more  horrible  cruelties 
to  Inflict  upon  the  spirit  and  body  of  man,  for  a 
world  in  which  the  ambition  or  the  philosophy  of 
a  few  shall  not  make  miserable  all  mankind,  for 
a  world  in  which  the  man  is  held  more  precious 
than  the  machine,  the  system,  or  the  state. 


FORESIGHT  AND  COOPERATION 

Address  at  rneeting  of  State  Councils  of  Defense,  May 
2,  1917, 

I  have  a  department  that  deals  with  a  great 
many  phases  of  our  national  life,  and  has  a  great 
deal  of  human  interest  in  it,  as  most  of  you  know. 
Those,  however,  who  come  from  the  West  are  far 
more  familiar  with  it  than  those  from  east  of  the 
Missouri  River,  though  there  are  few  families  in 
the  United  States  that  in  some  way  or  another  we 
do  not  touch. 

The  Pension  Department  is  an  interesting  one 
to  the  gentlemen  who  are  interested  in  politics 
and  all  who  are  looking  out  for  the  future  welfare 
of  those  who  will  be  or  who  are  the  dependents 
of  those  who  go  to  the  front.  There  has  been  a 
great  deal  of  fraud  in  our  pension  system,  and 
that  fraud  has  to  a  very  considerable  extent  been 
due  to  the  Government  itself,  to  the  lax  methods 
pursued  by  the  Government  in  gaining  the  facts. 

55 


56  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

that  were  necessary  upon  which  to  adjudicate  the 
claims  that  were  presented. 

We  have  in  our  department  also  the  Patent 
Oince,  and  we  are  trying  to  summon  to  the  sup- 
port of  the  United  States  at  this  time  the  inventive 
genius  of  the  United  States.  You  know  perhaps 
the  situation  on  the  other  side  of  the  water  with 
regard  to  the  submarine.  No  one  here  knows 
the  exact  figure  of  loss  the  past  ten  days.  It  prob- 
ably ran  up  to  four  hundred  thousand  tons. 
That's  a  startling  figure  to  us;  it  is  a  terrorizing 
figure  to  England  and  to  France.  If  that  figure 
should  be  kept  up  for  any  length  of  time,  it  would 
lay  those  countries  prostrate,  unless  we  could  go 
to  their  support,  or  through  the  inventive  mind  of 
man  some  means  could  be  discovered  by  which 
the  submarine  as  a  terrorizer  and  a  destroyer 
could  be  put  out  of  business. 

Our  Civil  War  saw  invention  after  invention 
created  by  the  magic  mind  of  man  to  offset  some 
invention  produced  on  the  opposite  side,  or  to 
bring  some  new  method  of  destruction  into  play. 
It  is  my  great  hope  that  out  of  this  war  and  per- 
haps before  long,  the  rare  genius  that  we  have  for 
producing  new  mechanical  devices  and  laying  hold 


FORESIGHT  AND  COOPERATION     57 

upon  new  resources  may  discover  a  method  by 
which  the  effectiveness  of  the  submarine  can  be  at 
any  rate  greatly  diminished.  I  had  a  talk,  for 
instance,  the  other  day,  with  a  group  of  inventors. 
This  thought  was  thrown  out,  that  possibly  a  force 
could  be  generated  in  the  ship  itself,  an  electrical 
wave  of  some  kind  that  could  surround  the  mov- 
ing ship  and  render  the  torpedo  valueless  either 
by  diverting  or  by  exploding  it  before  it  reaches 
the  ship. 

Such  things  look  like  impossibilities,  but  we  who 
are  familiar  with  the  wireless  know  that  there  is 
nothing  now  that  can  be  called  a  miracle.  The 
submarine  itself  is  a  miracle;  the  airship  is  a  mira- 
cle ;  the  war  is  being  conducted  by  two  things  that 
never  were  used  before.  It  is  not  the  land  force 
now  that  is  the  great  terrorizing  force;  it's  the 
airships,  which  are  new  scouts,  and  it's  the  sub- 
marine which  is  the  new  horror;  so  that  the  mind 
of  the  American,  directed  upon  this  concrete 
proposition  of  how  to  overcome  the  evil  influence 
of  the  submarine,  may  find  a  way  to  rescue  us.  I 
say  deliberately  rescue  us  —  you  men  who  come 
from  all  states  of  the  Union !  I  have  a  large  cor- 
respondence with  those  sections  of  this  country 


58  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

which  lie  out  toward  my  home,  and  I  find  that  they 
do  not  yet  realize  and  are  not  conscious  of  the 
fact  that  this  is  our  war,  just  as  really  our  war  as 
it  is  England's  war,  or  France's  war,  or  Russia's 
war.  The  fact  is  that  England  and  France  are 
fighting  for  principles  which  we  might  almost  say 
we  invented.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  our  War  of 
the  Revolution,  the  world  would  not  have  taken 
the  lead  toward  democracy  that  it  has  in  the  last 
century.  And  when  we  say  that  England  is  the 
"  Mother  Country,"  we  are  saying  something  that 
is  understandable  to  the  mass.  But  in  this  situa- 
tion the  United  States  Is  the  "  Mother  Country." 
In  going  into  this  war  we  are  really  standing  by 
our  own  children  who  are  fighting  for  the  princi- 
ples that  we  first  completely  announced  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

And  It's  a  humiliating  thought,  and  one  perhaps 
that  should  not  be  expressed,  to  think  of  the  pos- 
sibility of  our  failing  in  this  enterprise.  There 
were  a  great  many  people  in  the  United  States 
who  thought  that  all  we  had  to  do  was  to  Issue  a 
certain  number  of  bonds,  and  announce  that  fact 
in  the  papers,  and  that  Germany  would  bow  her 
head  In  humiliation  and  ask  for  terms.     Germany 


FORESIGHT  AND  COOPERATION     59 

understands  perfectly  well  the  condition  in  which 
we  are.  We  are  three  thousand  miles  removed 
from  the  battle  front.  And  that  battle  front 
should  never  be  brought  to  the  Atlantic  Coast! 
This  war  should  be  fought  on  the  waters  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  sea,  and  on  the  lands  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  sea;  but  It  will  be  fought  on 
this  side  unless  we  beat  them  there,  and  to  beat 
them  there  we  have  got  to  move  quickly ! 

Yes,  we  are  three  thousand  miles  from  the 
fighting  line,  and  we  have  got  to  get  there  some- 
how. So  we  need  ships.  We  are  building 
wooden  ships;  we  are  going  to  build  steel  ships. 
The  genius  of  the  United  States  will  not  let  us  be 
satisfied  with  building  a  type  of  ship  that  Is  fifty 
years  old,  valuable  as  it  will  prove  in  this  hour. 
You  can  not  tell  me  that  those  men  who  are  run- 
ning the  shipyards  of  the  United  States  can  not 
speed  up  and  find  new  methods  and  produce  steel 
ships  to  meet  this  demand.  TheyVe  simply  got 
to  do  It,  because  we  have  got  to  have  those  ships 
to  make  this  fight  I 

And  there  is  one  thing  too  that  I  may  say  to 
you  as  representing  various  communities:  At  the 
beginning  of  every  war  there  is  dissatisfaction  and 


6o  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

discontent  with  those  who  are  running  the  war.  I 
suppose  —  I  hope  you  have  all  read  Gideon 
Wells's  **  Diary."  Mr.  Wells  was  the  Secretary 
of  the  Navy  under  Lincoln,  lived  through  his  ad- 
ministration, and  on  into  Johnson's  administra- 
tion, and  if  you  read  that  you  will  discover  how 
much  of  dissatisfaction  there  was  with  the  way  in 
which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  conducting  the  war.  At 
one  time  Lincoln  said  that  he  had  but  one  man  in 
the  lower  House  of  Congress  who  really  was  his 
champion.  Every  one  of  us  is  trying  with  all  his 
might  to  do  his  best.  He  is  properly  subject  to 
criticism  if  he  is  negligent.  But  make  the  test  al- 
ways upon  the  basis  of  ascertained  facts,  and  not 
upon  the  basis  of  idle  rumor. 

You  know  there  are  a  great  many  people  in  the 
United  States  who  have  been  raised  under  the  in- 
dividualistic system,  which  we  are  fighting  to  pre- 
serve—  the  right  of  a  man  to  have  his  own 
thoughts  and  not  to  conform  to  the  thoughts  of 
those  above  him.  We,  in  the  United  States, 
being  raised  under  that  philosophy,  have  a  notion 
in  our  heads  that  we  can  do  things  somewhat  bet- 
ter than  the  other  fellow;  that  it's  a  part  of  almost 
every  political  creed,  and  almost  every  political 


FORESIGHT  AND  COOPERATION     61 

platform,  that  the  fellow  who  Is  in  and  doing  the 
job  is  wrong,  but  the  fellow  who  is  out  and  does 
not  have  the  chance  to  do  it,  could  do  it  much  bet- 
ter.    We  are  raised  upon  that  kind  of  doctrine ! 

There  was  a  great  literary  man  in  England 
named  Matthew  Arnold,  who  spent  a  long  and 
very  brilliant  life  in  criticism  of  the  philosophies, 
the  institutions  and  the  conduct  of  those  who 
were  around  him.  He  had  the  gift  of  expression, 
and  therefore  was  listened  to  by  large  audiences. 
When  he  died,  the  word  was  carried  to  Mr.  An- 
drew Lang.  Lang  paused  and  said :  "  Poor  Ar- 
nold! I  am  sorry  for  him.  He  won't  like 
God  I  "  So  if  you  can  carry  that  suggestion  back 
home  when  you  hear  these  people  decry  what  the 
administration  is  doing,  you  will  be  rendering  a 
great  service  to  your  government. 

I  am  putting  in  on  my  reclamation  system 
a  program  that  perhaps  it  is  hard  to  make  work 
at  first,  but  for  which  I  have  high  hopes,  not 
merely  as  to  the  reclamation  projects,  but  as  to 
our  general  farming  communities.  I  have  sent 
to  them  an  appeal  that  they  should  organize  them- 
selves, and  that  they  should  organize  themselves 
in  the  same  way  that  men  in  the  factory  are  organ- 


62  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

ized.  Each  man  should  be  organized  around  a 
machine,  just  as  the  men  in  the  army  are  organ- 
ized around  a  gun.  We  find  that  some  men  are 
rich  enough  to  have  tractors;  some  men  are  rich 
enough  to  have  gang  plows ;  and  so  I  am  trying  to 
get  the  men  on  these  projects  to  organize  them- 
selves around  these  machines,  and  treat  these  ma- 
chines as  common  property,  and  have  the  farmers 
farm  in  companies,  who  will  plow  not  only  their 
own  lands,  but  the  lands  of  all  their  neighbors, 
and  seed  them,  and  then  harvest  the  crops;  they 
will  move  like  a  great  flying  squadron  across  a 
farming  community,  and  do  the  work  collectively 
that  is  now  being  individualistically  done. 

That  idea  may  not  be  limited  to  a  reclamation 
project;  it  can  be  put  into  effect  in  every  county 
and  every  farming  district  in  the  United  States. 
The  farmer  has  been  more  backward  in  organiz- 
ing than  any  one  else  in  the  country.  He  has  been 
taught  to  believe  that  he  was  economically  inde- 
pendent, and  therefore  he  has  felt  that  he  might 
just  as  well  have,  and  should  have,  all  of  his  own 
implements  and  be  entirely  self-sufficing  as  an  eco- 
nomic factor.  The  wise  farmers  are  learning 
that  that  can't  be  done,  that  they  must  play  the 


FORESIGHT  AND  COOPERATION    63 

game  together,  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  spirit 
of  the  gang  which  makes  for  effectiveness,  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  farming  in  a  wholesale  way 
which  makes  for  larger  crops  and  ultimately  for 
less  work. 

And  that  brings  me  to  this  thought,  that  we 
must  not  look  at  this  season  alone.  You  and  I 
do  not  know  when  this  war  is  going  to  end.  This 
may  not  be  a  one  year's  job.  Whatever  the  size 
of  the  job,  we  have  got  to  provide  for  it  and  be 
equal  to  it.  For  myself,  I  do  not  believe  it's  to 
be  ended  in  this  year.  Germany  has  a  food  sup- 
ply, with  a  fair  crop  this  year,  that  will  last  two 
years.  She  has  an  abundance  of  iron  and  plenty 
of  coal.  What  her  other  internal  conditions  may 
be,  I  do  not  know;  but  she  has  put  up  the  greatest 
fight  that  the  world  has  ever  seen.  She  has  the 
easiest  end  of  the  fight  now,  because  she  is  on  the 
defensive,  where  she  can  hold  her  trenches  with  a 
comparatively  small  number  of  men  against  a 
larger  force.  She  has  the  inner  line  of  the  circle. 
She  has  been  preparing  a  long  time;  she  has  her 
railroad  lines  complete  to  care  for  her  needs.  So 
when  you  go  home,  I  beg  of  you  not  to  inspire 
your  people  with  the  belief  that  by  immediate 


64  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

action  even  they  are  going  to  bring  this  thing  to  an 
immediate  end,  but  prepare  your  plans  so  that  if 
you  cannot  sow  this  year  and  reap  this  year,  you 
can  sow  next  year  more  successfully  and  exten- 
sively, and  reap  a  more  abundant  harvest  next 
year.  We  cannot,  we  must  not  fail  in  this  ven- 
ture. The  pride  that  we  have  in  our  own  ability 
won't  let  us  even  think  of  such  a  thing.  But  war 
rs  now  a  matter  of  foresight,  and  not  merely  an 
expression,  a  gesture,  and  we  must  think,  there- 
fore, of  the  crops  of  next  year,  of  the  mine  output 
of  next  year,  of  the  aeroplane  output  of  next  year. 
And  there  is  no  man  from  California  to  Maine 
who  isn't  involved  in  this  work  —  not  a  single 
man  who  isn't  a  part  of  our  social  and  industrial 
and  military  fabric,  so  tied  up  with  the  pushing  of 
this  great  enterprise  that  he  is  not  a  soldier  under 
that  flag. 

And  there  is  one  line  of  work  which  you  men 
can  do  far  better  than  we  can,  and  that  is  the  in- 
spiring of  your  people.  The  hope  that  the 
French  have  is  that  the  morale  of  the  Germans 
will  break  down.  The  hope  that  we  have  is  that 
the  morale  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  will 
rise. 


THREE  FLAGS  IN  THE  SAME  COLORS 

Remarks  made,  presenting  Hon,  Myron  Herrick,  for- 
mer Ambassador  to  France,  at  Belasco  Theater,  New 
York,  May  J,  1917- 

The  past  week  has  been  one  of  great  signifi- 
cance. The  nations  that  believe  in  government 
by  the  will  of  the  people  have  clasped  hands. 
They  stand  united  in  spirit  and  in  purpose  against 
those  nations  which  represent  government  by 
force. 

The  most  dramatic  and  the  most  symbolic  pic- 
ture which  it  has  ever  been  my  fortune  to  see  was 
that  presented  in  front  of  the  tomb  of  Washing- 
ton on  Sunday.  As  we  came  in  front  of  that  sim- 
ple shrine,  the  first  things  that  the  eye  caught  were 
the  flags  of  the  United  States,  England,  and 
France,  side  by  side,  crowning  the  tomb  of  George 
Washington.  As  I  looked  at  those  flags,  for  the 
first  time  I  really  discovered  that,  after  all,  each 
had  the  same  colors,  each  was  a  modification  of 
the  other.     There  is  a  bit  of  symbolism  in  the 


66  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

position  of  those  flags  and  in  their  common  color- 
ing, which  has  its  meaning.  They  speak  for  a 
common  cause  to-day.  As  we  gathered  around 
the  door  of  the  tomb,  M.  Viviani  delivered  a  dis- 
cerning appreciation  of  the  hero  whose  name  is 
linked  in  history  with  those  of  Rochambeau  and 
Lafayette.  Then  Mr.  Balfour  said  a  few  simple 
words  of  the  deepest  moment.  He  was  followed 
by  Governor  Stewart,  of  Virginia,  who  spoke  with 
pride  of  the  great  Virginian.  Mr.  Balfour  then 
laid  a  wreath  of  lilies  upon  the  sarcophagus,  while 
General  Bridges  stood  at  salute  beside  the  door. 
Then  Marshal  Joffre  laid  a  bronze  palm  leaf  — 
just  such  as  crown  the  graves  of  the  heroes  of 
France  —  upon  the  tomb,  and  as  he  saluted,  his 
solemn,  beautiful  face  looking  down  as  if  into  the 
eyes  of  the  great  American,  all  bowed  their  heads 
as  if  in  prayer. 

It  has  taken  us  a  long  time  to  learn  the  meaning 
of  this  war.  We  are  a  Christian  and  a  kindly 
people.  It  was  not  in  our  hearts  to  believe  that 
the  gentle  German  folk  whom  we  knew  could,  by 
their  government,  be  forced  into  a  position  antag- 
onistic to  all  human  sentiment  and  all  the  princi- 
ples which  we  call  American.     We  could  not  be- 


THREE  FLAGS  67 

lieve  that  they  intended  to  do  what  they  did  at 
Louvain  and  Rheims.  We  could  not  believe 
that  they  intended  to  do  what  they  did  to  the 
Lusitania  or  to  the  Sussex,  We  could  not  believe 
that  it  was  their  purpose  to  turn  Belgium  into  an 
orphan  asylum  and  to  turn  beautiful  France  Into 
a  desert.  We  could  not  believe  that  it  was  their 
purpose  to  sink  hospital  ships  carrying  the  Red 
Cross.  Or  that  while  this  was  a  neutral  nation 
their  government  would  negotiate  with  those 
whom  she  imagined  were  hostile  to  us  in  a  vain 
effort  to  arouse  them  against  us.  But  now  we 
know  that  these  things  were  but  a  manifestation 
of  that  principle  of  force  which  is  the  enemy  of  all 
mankind.  Our  President,  in  a  message  of  un- 
equaled  eloquence  and  simplicity,  has  told  us  the 
story  of  his  long  patience  and  of  its  exhaustion. 
He  has  called  us  to  the  colors.  And  America 
stands  beside  that  tomb  of  Washington,  pledging 
herself  to  her  allies  for  the  maintenance  of  civili- 
'zatlon,  for  the  preservation  of  the  human  con- 
science as  against  the  mandates  of  a  wilful  power, 
for  individual  liberty  against  feudalism,  for  a  free 
sea  and  a  free  land. 

I  was  talking  with  a  member  of  Marshal  Jof- 


68  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

fre's  staff.  He  told  me  of  the  imperturbable 
manner  in  which  he  received  the  news  of  the  ad- 
vance on  Paris.  He  sat  in  his  room  looking  at 
the  map,  every  few  minutes  an  aide  coming  In  and 
changing  the  flags,  moving  the  French  flag  back 
toward  the  French  capital,  and  on  and  on  came  the 
German  flag.  At  last  they  reached  the  Marne, 
and  then  this  soft  spoken,  sweet  spirited  gentle- 
man quietly  took  up  his  pencil  saying,  "  This  thing 
has  gone  far  enough,"  and  wrote  an  appeal  to  the 
French  soldiers  to  stand  firm  and  die  before  they 
yielded  further.  His  men  responded  to  him  and 
drove  the  Germans  back,  and  he  Is  the  hero  of  the 
world's  greatest  battle  in  ten  long  centuries. 

"  This  thing  has  gone  far  enough."  That  is 
the  spirit  in  which  we  meet  the  situation  to-day. 
In  that  spirit  we,  too,  can  stand  before  the  tomb 
of  Washington  and  say  with  Joffre,  as  Washing- 
ton would  have  said,  "  This  thing  has  gone  far 
enough." 


GREATER  THAN  MAKING  MONEY 

Address  before  the  Convention  of  Coal  Producers  in 
Washington,  June  26,  1917. 

I  have  just  come  from  a  meeting  of  the  central 
committee  of  the  Red  Cross.  You  can  recall 
how  astonished  you  were  when  the  request  went 
out  or  the  thought  was  suggested  that  we  should 
raise  $100,000,000  for  the  Red  Cross.  Some 
of  us  do  not  quite  appreciate  how  big  a  thing 
this  war  is;  some  of  us  do  not  appreciate  how  big 
the  United  States  is,  and  I  am  very  glad  to  tell 
you,  although  the  fact  has  not  yet  been  made  pub- 
lic, that  the  hundred  million  line  will  be  crossed 
to-day.  There  are  over  ninety-nine  millions  now, 
and  the  prospect  is  that  there  will  be  an  over- 
subscription for  the  Red  Cross  fund  of  perhaps 
five  or  six  million  dollars. 

These  are  days  of  big  things.  No  one  would 
have  thought  that  the  country  which  fifty  years 
ago  was  able  to  float  after  the  greatest  difficulty  a 
popular  subscription  of  $800,000,000  during  the 

69 


70  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

Civil  War  would  be  able  to  subscribe  within  thirty 
days  three  thousand  million  dollars,  coming  from 
4,000,000  people.  These  are  big  days,  when  big 
things  are  being  done  in  a  big  country  by  big  men. 
And  it  is  because  the  success  of  our  national  ven- 
ture rests  upon  you  that  you  are  here  to-day. 
You  are  called  into  this  game  just  as  definitely  as 
the  Red  Cross  nurse  or  the  soldier  in  the  trench,  or 
Pershing  in  France,  or  the  President  in  the  White 
House.  This  war  is  your  game,  and  I  am  not 
going  to  mince  words  about  it  at  all.  It  is  being 
put  up  to  you  as  a  challenge.  The  burden,  the 
present  and  immediate  burden  —  because  you  con- 
trol the  fundamental  in  industry  —  rests  upon 
your  shoulders,  and  the  question  is.  How  much 
vision  have  you  got?  Are  you  small,  or  are  you 
big;  are  you  the  petty  politicians  of  the  country, 
or  are  you  statesmen  in  a  great  time  ?  Now,  that 
is  the  real  challenge  in  the  present  situation,  be- 
cause the  country  will  not  stand  anything  but  a 
large  policy  from  large  men. 

You  have  been  going  on  for  years,  many  of  you, 
under  the  greatest  difficulties.  Only  you  your- 
selves know  better  than  I  just  what  those  difficul- 
ties  have   been,   how   close   a   margin  of  profit 


GREATER  THAN  MAKING  MONEY  71 

you  made,  and  how  you  were  many  times  withqijjt— . 
profit.  I  do  not  believe  that  the  coal  industry  of  I 
the  country  can  continue  upon  the  basis  that  it 
was  prior  to  this  war.  I  think  that  there  must  be 
some  new  adjustment  by  which  the  man  who  is  in 
that  industry  will  be  more  certainly  insured 
against  a  cut-throat  policy.  I  want  to  see  this 
industry  stabilized;  I  want  to  see  your  profits 
large,  large  because  we  are  dealing  with  things  in 
a  large  way,  because  I  believe  in  rewarding  men 
according  to  their  imagination  and  their  capacity 
and  their  daring  when  they  are  doing  a  service. 
But  this  war  time,  I  say  to  you,  eye  to  eye,  when 
your  boy  and  mine  are  going  to  the  front,  is  no 
time  in  which  to  reap  an  advantage,  even  though  it 
comes  under  the  normal  laws  of  trade.  The  law 
of  supply  and  demand  which  regulates  prices  nor- 
mally is  set  aside  when  the  life  of  the  Nation 
is  at  stake.  There  are  things  greater  than  mak- 
ing money  to-day,  and  when  that  thought  gets  into 
the  soul  of  the  people  of  the  United  States  we 
can  make  short  work  of  this  war  on  the  other 
side.  And  it  is  because  we  want  to  have  it  a  short 
war  that  we  want  to  have  the  people  of  the  United 
States  mobilize  behind  this  administration,  not 


72  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

because  it  Is  our  administration  but  because  it  is 
your  administration. 

Did  you  notice  the  speech  that  Mr.  Root  made 
a  da,y  or  two  .ago  In  Russia  ?  I  want  you  to  pic- 
ture him  to  yourself,  standing  before  5,000  peas- 
ants and  workmen  —  men  who,  seventy-five  years 
ago,  were  slaves,  slaves  as  truly  as  the  negro  was 
a  slave  in  the  South  at  the  same  time,  and  to-day 
those  men  have  come  up  through  the  crust  and 
they  are  looking  out  upon  the  world  with  eyes  that 
are  new,  unaccustomed  to  the  light.  They  have 
heard  of  liberty,  they  have  heard  of  justice,  and 
they  have  heard  it  said  that  under  democracy 
these  great  essentials  to  free  development  would 
come  —  and  Mr.  Root  stands  before  those  men 
saying:  "  We  are  fighting  for  you,  and  we  want 
you  to  fight  with  us." 

What  shall  we  say  to  Mr.  Root?  Is  there  a 
man  In  the  United  States  that  will  say  to  him, 
"  Tell  the  people  of  Russia  that  my  purpose 
In  this  time  of  international  struggle  is  to  make 
money;  that  I  look  upon  this  as  an  opportunity  to 
take  to  myself  all  the  advantage  that  the  market 
will  give  "?  Is  there  a  man  who  will  say  to  me, 
*'  You  can  send  your  boy  to  France  while  I  stay 


GREATER  THAN  MAKING  MONEY  73 

here  and  coin  his  blood  into  dollars  "?  I  know 
that  that  is  not  the  spirit  of  the  American  man. 
For  two  months  since  this  war  began  I  have  been 
overwhelmed  with  telegrams  and  letters  from  the 
greatest  business  men  in  this  country,  saying,  "  Let 
me  come  in  and  help ;  I  am  anxious  to  do  my  share. 
I  am  too  old  to  go  to  the  front;  I  may  not  be  able 
to  do  anything,  I  admit,  In  the  training  of  soldiers; 
but  I  am  not  too  old  to  come  down  and  give  the 
remainder  of  my  life  In  support  of  the  cause  that  I 
love  and  In  support  of  the  country  that  has  given 
me  the  opportunity  to  make  the  money  I  have 
made."  That  Is  the  spirit  of  our  people.  That 
spirit  will  win  this  war;  it  Is  your  vision  that  will 
make  this  thing  a  success. 

If  you  say  to  the  working  people  of  the  United 
States,  "  We  have  the  Insight  and  the  foresight  to 
know  that  there  will  be  no  opportunity  either  for 
workmen  or  for  capitalists  unless  we  are  able  to 
establish  firmly  in  this  country  the  principle  of  lib- 
erty and  stand  united  and  forever  against  those 
who  would  break  It  down,"  then  you  can  expect  en- 
thusiasm from  the  man  who  has  got  to  shoulder  a 
musket  and  go  across  the  water.  But  you  cannot 
expect  that  spirit  in  the  people  at  large  if  we  who 


74  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

have  education,  if  we  who  read  the  newspapers 
and  magazines,  if  we  who  come  in  contact  with 
those  people  who  have  been  on  the  other  side  in 
the  war,  if  we  who  realize  what  this  thing  means, 
do  not  show  by  our  acts  of  sacrifice  that  we  do 
realize  how  critical  this  day  is. 

I  want  to  tell  you  of  a  little  thing  that  happened 
In  this  city  six  or  seven  years  ago  when  I  was  a 
member  of  the  Interstate  Commerce  Commission. 
At  that  time  there  were  complaints  before  the 
Interstate  Commerce  Commission  against  the  ex- 
press rates  of  all  the  express  carriers  in  the  coun- 
try. It  had  several  times  been  suggested  to  me 
that  before  we  dealt  with  a  large  and  intricate 
problem  we  should  call  in  the  men  who  had  the 
primary  responsibility  for  solving  that  problem, 
the  presidents  and  the  managers  of  these  com- 
panies; and,  inasmuch  as  I  saw  that  it  was  neces- 
sary to  reform  the  whole  express-rate  system  and 
that  this  thing  was  not  a  local  question  but  was  a 
question  that  extended  throughout  the  breadth  of 
the  land,  I  did  what  was  suggested,  and  for  two 
weeks  I  sat  in  my  office  with  these  gentlemen,  say- 
ing to  them,  "  It  is  necessary,  gentlemen,  that  the 
rates  upon  small  packages  should  be  reduced;  it  is 


GREATER  THAN  MAKING  MONEY  7^ 

necessary  that  we  should  have  a  basis  of  rates  that 
will  be  intelligible  to  your  own  people,  some  of 
whom  are  under  indictment  for  violating  their  tar- 
iffs; it  is  necessary  that  the  rates  that  are  made 
should  be  uniform  throughout  the  great  extent  of 
our  territory.  I  put  it  up  to  you  to  institute  that 
system  of  rates;  tell  me  the  basis  upon  which  the 
rates  shall  be  made,  tell  me  how  they  can  be  con- 
structed, and  how  they  can  be  presented.'*  What 
was  the  answer  I  got?  With  the  exception  of 
one,  they  replied,  "  As  long  as  you  leave  us  the 
amount  of  money  we  are  making  now  we  do  not 
care  what  kind  of  a  system  you  put  Into  effect." 
(I  see  a  man  here  who  knows  that  what  I  am  tell- 
ing you  Is  true.)  I  replied  to  them,  "  You  will 
never  have  that  opportunity  unless  you  do  it  now ; 
you  will  have  a  parcels  post."  They  came  back 
saying,  "  We  understand  from  the  Hill  that  the 
parcel-post  bill  cannot  carry." 

At  the  end  of  the  two  weeks'  conference  I  said, 
*'  Gentlemen,  this  thing  will  have  to  rest  with  the 
commission.  You  have  not  taken  up  the  chal- 
lenge that  I  have  given  to  you.  It  Is  a  challenge 
that  rests  upon  you  not  by  virtue  of  anything  I 
have  said  but  by  virtue  of  a  condition  that  exists 


y 


76  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

throughout  the  United  States.  We  will  proceed 
and  make  the  rates  and  make  new  systems  of  stat- 
ing rates  and  make  new  classifications  and  so 
reform  the  entire  express  rates  for  all  the  express 
carriers  of  the  United  States." 

That  was  a  challenge  to  their  vision,  and  they 
did  not  have  the  vision.  I  am  talking  to  you 
to-day,  if  you  will  let  me  say  so,  as  one  statesman 
to  other  statesmen.  The  difference  between  men 
in  dealing  with  public  affairs  is  that  one  man 
thinks  of  himself  and  his  own  narrow  environment 
and  another  man  looks  broadly  throughout  the 
land  and  sees  the  condition  of  the  masses  of  man- 
kind and  feels  what  they  are  feeling.  Statesman- 
ship is  foresight,  and  the  greatness  of  the  Ameri- 
can business  man  has  been  that  he  has  had  fore- 
sight. We  who  have  been  in  public  office  in  the 
United  States  have  had  comparatively  little  to  do 
with  the  growth  of  this  country.  The  men  who 
have  charge  of  our  industries,  who  have  pushed 
our  railroads,  who  have  driven  the  tunnels  and  the 
shafts,  who  have  laid  out  the  roads,  who  have 
planted  the  farms,  who  have  explored  the  country 
—  those  are  the  men  that  have  made  America,  not 
the  men  who  have  been  in  political  life.     All  we 


GREATER  THAN  MAKING  MONEY  77 

have  ever  had  to  do  was  to  voice  your  sentiment 
and  give  you  the  opportunity.  The  statesman  in 
industry  is  the  man  who  thinks  not  of  to-day,  but  ^ 
of  to-morrow.  And  what  is  to-morrow  to  be  for  | 
us  in  pride,  in  self-respect,  in  good  conscience,  in 
fortune,  in  opportunity,  unless  we  are  successful 
in  this  war,  unless  we  retain  the  right  to  make  the 
kind  of  Government  that  we  think  this  Govern- 
ment should  be,  unless  we  have  the  vision  to  see 
to-day  that  the  people  of  the  United  States  are 
not  satisfied  with  the  coal  conditions,  that  they 
must  have  cheaper  coal?  And  if  the  burden  of 
making  that  coal  cheaper  rests  upon  you,  then  you 
must  meet  it  and  meet  it  as  statesmen.  If  it  rests 
upon  the  railroads  in  not  delivering  cars,  then  it 
must  rest  upon  them.  If  it  rests  upon  the  work- 
ingmen,  then  the  workingmen  should  know  that 
responsibility  and  be  challenged  by  it. 

I  am  not  a  demagogue,  but  I  must  here  say  that 
I  have  no  confidence  whatever  in  the  feeling  that 
the  men  who  work  in  the  mines  are  not  as  patri- 
otic as  any  of  us  and  are  not  willing  to  work  just 
as  long  hours  and  just  as  faithfully  under  these 
circumstances.  If  you  put  the  challenge  up  to 
them  they  will  take  up  that  challenge.     The  thing 


78  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

has  to  be  done  by  faith.  You  cannot  win  this  war 
in  any  other  way  than  by  faith  —  faith  in  each 
other,  faith  in  your  Government,  faith  in  the  men 
that  are  working  for  you.  These  are  the  very 
foundation  stones  of  this  Nation,  and  until  you  get 
this  thought  inside  of  you,  you  are  constantly  ask- 
ing, "  Why  is  this  war?  "  Unless  you  believe  in 
men,  that  this  world  has  not  come  to  you  simply 
as  the  opportunity  for  making  so  much  money 
and  getting  so  much  out  of  it;  unless  you  get  into 
your  soul  the  idea  that  man  is  given  an  opportunity 
in  democracy  that  does  not  come  to  him  under  any 
other  conditions,  you  cannot  understand  this  war. 
But  when  we  realize  that  there  are  two  principles, 
one  set  up  against  another,  and  that  those  princi- 
ples must  inevitably  fight  —  yes,  just  as  inevitably 
as  slavery  and  freedom  —  and  that  one  must  tri- 
umph, one  will  bring  liberty  to  the  world  and  the 
other  the  autocratic  soldier  —  when  you  believe 
that,  you  say,  "These  little  things  fade  away;  I 
will  rise  for  the  time  being  to  the  full  dignity  and 
stature  of  an  American  citizen,"  and  to  be  an 
American  citizen  is  not  merely  to  have  the  chance 
to  make  a  million  dollars,  but  to  have  the  chance 


GREATER  THAN  MAKING  MONEY  79 

to  uphold  the  arm  of  the  man  who  is  making  the 
fight  for  you  and  for  your  liberties. 

We  stand  right  here  in  the  presence  of  three 
great  monuments.  As  you  go  out  of  this  building 
you  see  them  —  the  monument  to  Washington,  the 
monument  that  is  just  being  constructed  to  Lin- 
coln, and  the  monument  across  the  river,  Arling- 
ton.    They  all  represent  this  immediate  occasion 

—  Lincoln  and  Washington  the  spirit  of  freedom, 
the  spirit  of  independence;  and  across  the  river 
Arlington,  where  the  men  who  fought  for  the  per- 
petuation of  this  Union  are  buried.  But  there 
will  be  a  greater  graveyard  than  that  along  this 
coast  two  years  from  now.     Do  you  realize  that? 

—  a  greater  graveyard  than  Arlington  upon  these 
shores  two  years  from  now,  a  graveyard  that  will 
represent  more  than  that  graveyard  represents. 
That  was  a  fight  between  two  clashing  causes 
within  our  country;  this  is  a  fight  between  two 
clashing  causes  the  whole  world  round. 

What  would  Lincoln  say  was  your  duty  at  this 
time  if  he  found  discontent  among  the  people  be- 
cause they  thought  you  men  controlled  a  primary 
resource  —  the  coal  in  the  ground  that  belongs  to 


8o  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

the  people  of  the  United  States?  Suppose  Lin- 
coln were  to  look  down  upon  you  from  that  monu- 
ment, look  out  through  those  doors  and  look  at 
this  assemblage,  and  you  were  to  say  to  him,  "  Mr. 
Lincoln,  you  have  the  great  eye  of  the  seer.  Be- 
fore the  war  you  saw  truly  what  would  come  unless 
the  Northern  idea  prevailed.  What  would  you 
say  to-day  if  you  were  the  manager  of  a  great 
coal  property?  "  Or,  if  you  asked  that  wise  old 
man  who  lived  at  Mount  Vernon  and  to  whom 
that  other  superb  monument  has  been  erected,  the 
like  of  which  the  world  has  never  seen  —  if  you 
asked  George  Washington,  who  built  this  canal  up 
the  river,  who  planned  the  city,  who  was  above 
all  things  perhaps  a  representative  of  yourselves 
in  that  he  was  a  great  business  man  —  if  you 
asked  George  Washington  to  stand  before  you  to- 
day and  answer  the  question,  '*  What  is  my  duty 
at  this  time?  How  can  I  allay  discontent  in  this 
country?  How  can  I  make  the  man  at  the  front 
feel  that  I  am  back  of  him,  and  that  while  I  can 
not  sacrifice  my  life  I  can  make  sacrifice  of  some- 
thing else  on  his  behalf?  I  can  stir  up  the  indus- 
tries of  the  United  States;  I  can  build  aeroplanes; 
I  can  build  shells ;  I  can  furnish  the  coal  that  will 


GREATER  THAN  MAKING  MONEY  81 

melt  the  iron  that  will  go  into  the  cannon  that  will 
fire  the  missiles  across  the  line.  This  thing  is  up 
to  me,  Mr.  Washington.     What  is  my  duty?  " 

What  would  he  say  to  you?  He  would  say, 
"  Gentlemen,  that  is  a  challenge  that  I  had  to  meet 
more  than  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  I  was 
the  richest  man  in  Virginia,  the  richest  man  in  the 
South.  All  the  associations  that  I  had  were  with 
those  who  believed  in  comfort  and  prosperity.  I 
had  great  dreams  of  extending  my  land  holdings 
in  the  far,  far  West.  I  saw  myself  the  master  of 
a  great  system  of  canals  uniting  the  coast  and  the 
Mississippi.  But  when  the  challenge  was  put  up 
to  me,  I  pledged  not  only  my  life,  my  sacred  honor, 
but  my  fortune  behind  the  cause  of  liberty." 

Now,  gentlemen,  this  is  a  very  concrete  proposi- 
tion.    You  must  not  look  at  this  thing  in  the 
terms  of  the  dollar  you  can  make.     The  law  of  ; 
supply  and  demand  is  a  law  that  works,  except' 
in  the  case  of  a  monopoly,  or  except  in  the  case 
of  a  national   emergency.     If  I  know  anything    / 
about  the  coal  business  I  know  something  about 
your  costs.     I  have  had  some  of  you  to  testify 
before  me  that  you  made  nothing  out  of  your  coal, 
that  you  made  your  money  out  of  your  stores,  and 


82  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

out  of  the  houses  that  you  rented.  I  have  heard 
your  tales  of  distress  many  times,  and  I  have  not 
doubted  them,  and  I  do  not  doubt  you  now.  I 
could  not  doubt  because  I  have  faith  in  you,  and 
I  come  to  you  to  say  that  this  is  a  concrete  per- 
sonal proposition.  There  shall  be  no  opportu- 
nity to  sneer  at  you.  Your  boy  shall  not  after 
this  war  is  over  be  asked  the  question,  "  What  did 
your  father  do  during  the  war?"  and  be  com- 
pelled to  say,  "  He  stayed  at  home  and  stood  for 
the  highest  prices  he  could  get  on  his  coal,  and  the 
limousine  I  am  using  to-day  is  the  product  of  that 
action  of  his."  That  boy  would  rather  walk, 
would  he  not,  than  have  that  said  by  any  one  of 
his  father? 

You  are  not  living  for  to-day,  and  you  are  not 
living  for  yourselves.  You  are  living  for  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States  —  indeed  you  are  living 
for  the  people  of  the  world.  What  right  have 
you  to  take  advantage  of  the  necessities  of  a  na- 
tion, to  put  its  future  at  peril  in  order  to  make  a 
great  fortune  out  of  it?  Have  you  not  yet  the 
social  idea?  Do  you  realize  the  relation  between 
the  individual  and  society?  What  right  have 
you,  I  ask,  to  take  advantage  of  the  shortness  of 


GREATER  THAN  MAKING  MONEY  83 

our  supply  of  coal  and  the  greatness  of  the  de- 
mand to  ask  a  single  cent  more  than  you  think  is 
reasonable?  Where  is  the  moral  sense  of  a  man 
who  would  make  such  a  demand  at  such  a  time  ? 

Now,  these  are  stern  words,  but  they  come 
from  stern  facts.  We  are  up  against  a  situation 
that  is  real.  We  want  boats  and  we  have  got  to 
have  iron  to  get  those  boats,  and  we  have  got  to 
have  coal  to  melt  that  iron.  This  war  cannot  be 
won  without  boats,  and  you  people  have  got  to 
furnish  the  coal.  What  is  the  word  that  is  going 
to  be  sent  throughout  the  world  regarding  the 
American  business  man  and  his  attitude  ?  Has  he 
lost  his  vision;  has  he  become  puerile?  No,  no! 
I  know  that  it  will  not  be  so,  and  I  say  to  you  — 
the  practical  thing,  the  wise  thing,  the  farsighted 
thing,  the  sensible  thing,  the  thing  that  you  will  be 
proud  of  tomorrow  and  next  year  and  twenty 
years  from  now,  the  best  thing  to  do,  the  American 
thing  to  do,  is  for  you  to  put  into  the  hands  of 
some  one  or  some  small  group  the  fixing  of  a  low 
price  upon  coal  and  let  the  word  go  out  that  so 
far  as  the  coal  operator  is  concerned  he  is  as  much 
a  patriot  as  any  other  man  and  he  will  make  a  sac- 
rifice; he  will  not  ask  all  the  traffic  will  bear,  he 


84  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

will  not  compel  the  Government  to  put  Its  strong 
hand  upon  him  and  cause  him  to  bring  down  the 
price,  but  he  will  rise  up  in  the  full  dignity  of  his 
manhood  and  say,  "  Gentlemen,  the  coal  mines  of 
the  United  States  are  at  your  service.  I  ask  you 
to  leave  me  the  opportunity  to  operate  those  mines 
and  let  me  deal  with  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  and  I  will  prove  that  I  can  be  fair." 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  WEST 

Speech  at  Philadelphia,  October  i8,  1917, 

I  have  just  returned  from  a  three  weeks'  trip 
throughout  the  West.  I  went  from  Louisiana 
through  Oklahoma,  Kansas,  Colorado,  Wyoming, 
Utah,  Idaho  to  Oregon.  My  journey  was  one  of 
curiosity.  I  had  been  told  that  somewhere  in  the 
far  distant  reaches  of  the  continent  the  men  and 
women  of  our  country  were  disloyal  to  their  flag, 
or  at  least  that  they  did  not  think  enough  of  it  to 
fight  for  it.  Washington,  as  some  of  you  know,  is 
a  strange  place.  It  is  a  cup,  a  valley  surrounded 
by  a  horseshoe  of  mountains  into  which,  by  some 
strange  law,  the  miasmic  vapors  of  the  country 
drop  and  set  up  strange  states  of  mind.  I  was 
told  in  Washington  that  the  only  section  of  this 
country  which  was  enlightened  and  patriotic 
enough  to  understand  the  deep  significance  of 
this  war  and  to  be  willing  to  sacrifice  for  it 
was  that  fortunate  section  which  borders  on 
the  Atlantic  Ocean;  that  out  beyond  the  hills  to 

8s 


86  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

the  westward  were  to  be  found  limitless  plains 
upon  which  lived  those  who,  like  some  Bud- 
dhist monks  of  whom  I  have  read,  sat  through- 
out the  days  in  silent  and  solemn  contemplation, 
their  eyes  centered  on  the  pits  of  their  stomachs, 
never  looking  up  at  the  sky  nor  out  upon  the 
fields,  and  never  hearing  the  voice  of  the  world 
as  it  passed  by  —  self-centered,  flabby,  spiritless. 
And  so  I  went  out  beyond  these  western  hills  to 
find  these  strange  creatures  at  this  time.  There 
are  many  hills  between  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pa- 
cific, and  as  I  crossed  one  range  after  another  I 
was  told  **  if  there  are  any  such  people  they  are 
beyond  the  other  range,"  until  I  came  to  the  sea 
that  looks  out  upon  China.  And  I  did  not  find 
those  for  whom  I  sought.  I  came  back  with  the 
feeling  that  it  is  a  good  thing  to  leave  Washington 
once  in  a  while.  This  is  a  very  great  country  that 
we  live  in.  To  know  how  great  it  is  and  to  know 
Its  spirit  one  must  not  rest  too  long  in  any  one 
spot. 

I    I  went  to  Oklahoma.     There  I  had  been  told 
/that  I  would  find  the  very  seat  and  center  of  hos- 
tility to  the  Government.     I  found  that  a  few 
misled  tenant  farmers  had  objected  to  the  draft. 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  WEST     87 

When  I  asked  what  reason  they  gave  they  said  7 
New  York  had  brought  on  the  war,  and  New  York 
should  make  the  fight.  But  that  was  not  the  spirit 
of  Oklahoma,  not  nearly  so  much  the  spirit  of 
Oklahoma  as  the  draft  riots  were  the  spirit  of 
New  York  in  ^G^-  There  is  one  town  of  5,000 
people  in  Oklahoma  who  bought  $275,000  worth 
of  Liberty  Bonds,  more  than  one  fifty-dollar  bond 
for  each  inhabitant,  man,  woman  and  child,  and 
who  raised  $18,000  for  the  Red  Cross,  more  than 
three  dollars  and  a  half  for  each  inhabitant  of  the 
town.  That  does  not  look  like  slacking.  After  a  ; 
meeting  In  Tusla  a  man  came  to  me,  dressed  In  a 
blue  jumper  and  overalls,  and  said:  **  Mr.  Lane, 
I  am  doing  my  bit.  I  have  six  children,  four  boys 
and  two  girls.  The  four  boys  are  in  the  Army 
and  the  two  girls  are  Red  Cross  nurses,  and  I  am 
saving  to  buy  a  Liberty  Bond."  That  does  not 
look  like  slacking,  either.  In  Salt  Lake  City  I 
reviewed  the  newly  organized  troops,  and  the 
grandson  of  Brigham  Young,  who  is  a  colonel  of 
one  of  the  regiments,  pointed  with  justifiable  pride 
to  one  of  the  companies  that  passed  and  said: 
"  Every  boy  In  that  company  has  bought  a  Liberty 
Bond.     They  are  not  only  willing  to  fight  but  they 


88  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

are  willing  to  pay  for  their  own  support  while  they 
are  fighting."  In  Idaho,  ex-Governor  Hawley 
took  me  into  his  library  and  showed  me  the  pic- 
ture of  four  boys  upon  the  wall,  his  sons,  and  said : 
"  I  am  left  all  alone.  All  those  boys  have  gone 
into  the  war."  In  Portland,  Oregon,  they  told 
me  that  not  one  man  had  been  drafted  from  that 
county,  because  the  full  quota  of  the  county  had 
been  filled  by  men  who  volunteered  for  the  regular 
army  or  militia.  That  is  the  spirit  of  the  West. 
Kipling  says  that  "  East  Is  East  and  West  is 
West,"  but  I  say  to  you  that  there  is  neither  East 
nor  West  to  this  country.  It  Is  one,  bound  by  a 
common  determination  to  win  this  war. 

Another  thing  I  found  was  that  the  people 
of  the  United  States  have  entire  confidence  in 
President  Woodrow  Wilson,  the  Commander-in- 
Chief  of  the  Army  and  the  Navy.  They  believe 
that  the  President  knows  how  to  make  war  and 
when  to  make  peace.  They  know  that  he  Is  hon- 
est and  that  their  money  will  not  be  wasted. 
They  know  that  In  the  conduct  of  the  war  he  has 
arisen  above  partisanship,  above  politics,  into  the 
high,  clear  air  of  patriotic  statesmanship.  The 
men  that  he  asks  for  and  the  money  that  he  asks 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  WEST     89 

for  they  will  give.  They  may  not  know  the  in- 
tricacies of  international  law  or  the  fine  points  of 
national  pride,  and  may  not  even  realize  the  sig- 
nificance to  themselves  and  to  the  world  of  this 
momentous  contest,  but  they  know  that  President 
Wilson  endured  with  patience,  and  came  to  his 
judgment  solemnly  and  slowly.  And  they  will 
follow  wherever  he  leads  and  at  the  pace  he 
wishes  to  go.  They  have  seen  moving  pictures  of 
the  President  marching  at  the  head  of  the  parade 
when  the  men  from  Washington  marched  to  Fort 
Myer,  and  they  like  his  stride. 

We  are  an  Impatient  people.  There  are  some 
who  cannot  understand  why  we  do  not  have  a 
million  men  in  France  at  this  moment.  And  when 
we  ask  them:  "  How  would  you  get  them  there? 
Where  are  the  ships  to  carry  them?  Where  are 
the  ships  to  munition  them?  Where  are  the  ships 
to  support  them? "  they  have  no  answer. 
"  We  should  have  had  the  ships,"  they  say.  I  re- 
member that  Secretary  McAdoo  three  years  ago, 
within  a  month  after  the  war  broke  out  In  Europe, 
advocated  the  construction  of  a  great  fleet  of 
merchant  ships  by  the  Government  or  under  Gov- 
ernment guarantee.     And  if  there  was  a  voice 


90  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

raised  In  this  city  In  favor  of  that  program  I  failed 
to  hear  it.  But  we  are  going  to  have  those  ships. 
By  next  spring  we  will  have  one  million  tons  of 
new  shipping.  By  then  we  are  promised  the 
equivalent  of  two  5,000-ton  steamships  per  day, 
to  continue  indefinitely.  And  after  the  war  we 
will  restore  the  American  flag  to  the  seven  seas 
of  the  world  and  enter  into  a  generous  rivalry  with 
all  Europe  to  sell  our  goods  stamped  "  Made  in 
America." 

We  are  a  critical  people.  Each  one  of  us 
knows  best  how  a  thing  should  be  done.  Now  I 
have  no  doubt  that  we  have  made  mistakes  and 
will  make  mistakes  in  preparation  for  and  In  the 
conduct  of  this  war.  There  never  yet  was  a  rail- 
road laid  in  the  United  States  that  did  not  have  to 
have  its  line  changed  after  construction.  Let  me 
say  this  bluntly  to  you,  that  if  this  huge  and  un- 
paralleled job  cannot  be  done  it  will  be  because 
there  are  not  men  in  the  United  States  who  can  do 
it,  for  we  have  not  hesitated  to  call  upon  those 
men  who  have  proved  themselves  in  the  conduct 
of  the  greatest  enterprises  on  this  continent, — 
railroad  presidents,  engineers,  chemists,  con- 
tractors,  manufacturers,   inventors.     The   brains 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  WEST     91 

of  the  United  States  are  involved  in  the  conduct  of 
this  war.  We  have  asked  no  man  whether  he  is  a 
Republican  or  a  Democrat.  We  have  not  sought 
to  know  whether  he  was  rich  or  poor.  If  he 
could  serve  the  Nation  at  this  time  he  was  our 
man.  And  it  is  a  matter  of  the  profoundest  pride 
to  me  and  to  every  one  who  knows  the  facts  that 
the  business  men  of  this  country  have  not  waited 
for  the  call  but  have  volunteered  in  overwhelming 
numbers  to  give  of  their  time  and  their  capacity, 
without  compensation,  in  this  hour  of  the  Govern- 
ment's need. 

There  is  no  thought  throughout  the  country 
that  we  will  not  succeed  either  in  raising  the  money 
or  the  men  that  we  need.  This  country  has  no 
doubt  of  itself.  It  is  the  creature  of  faith.  It  is 
greater  than  any  one  man  and  greater  than  any 
group  of  men.  It  is  a  great  adventurous  spirit. 
No  man  can  look  as  I  have  done  during  the  last 
three  weeks  on  the  enterprise  and  the  industry  and 
the  wealth  of  this  country  and  think  for  one  mo- 
ment that  we  can  fail.  I  have  passed  through 
mile  after  mile  of  blazing  forges.  I  have  seen  a 
solid  mountain  of  the  richest  copper  handled  with 
a  steam  shovel.     I  have  seen  land  that  yielded 


92  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

sixty  bushels  of  wheat  to  the  acre  and  more  land 
that  yielded  four  hundred  bushels  of  potatoes  to 
the  acre.  We  will  not  let  our  allies  starve.  We 
will  not  let  them  go  without  shot  for  their  guns. 

This  task  upon  which  we  are  engaged,  it  must 
be  remembered,  is  the  greatest  enterprise  that  any 
nation  has  ever  undertaken.  For  we  have  not 
only  had  to  create  an  army,  house  it,  equip  it, 
transport  it,  and  supply  it,  but  we  have  had  to 
help  in  the  financing  of  four  of  the  greatest  na- 
tions of  the  world,  to  aid  in  the  reconstruction  of 
their  railroads,  in  supplying  them  with  munitions 
and  with  food,  and  this  at  a  distance  of  more  than 
three  thousand  miles.  We  have  had  to  stimulate 
our  own  industries  and  our  own  agriculture.  We 
have  had  to  make  plans  for  saving  food  and  sav- 
ing money,  for  the  protection  of  our  own  people 
as  well  as  others  against  profiteering.  Each  day 
there  have  been  prophesies  of  failure,  but  our 
Navy  patrols  the  sea,  not  a  man  has  been  lost  on 
his  way  to  France,  our  Army  is  housed,  clothed, 
and  is  in  the  field  drilling,  and  we  are  getting  rifles 
for  them  at  the  rate  of  fifteen  thousand  a  day. 

The  message  that  the  West  sends  to  you  is  this : 
Have  faith  in  your  country,  have  faith  in  your 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  WEST     93 

Government,  remember  that  prophesies  of  evil  al- 
ways fail  in  the  United  States.  Whatever  the 
temporary  condition  may  be,  the  man  who  is  the 
thoroughbred  wins  out.  We  are  but  beginning 
to  learn  the  art  of  cooperation  in  the  United 
States.  We  have  not  exercised  the  powers  as  a 
Government  that  can  be  exercised  for  the  support 
and  maintenance  of  the  great  enterprises  and  in- 
dustries of  the  country  which  are  its  arteries,  its 
hands  and  its  feet.  Go  out  over  the  western  hills 
and  you  will  come  back,  as  I  have  come  back, 
without  depression,  with  a  heart  full  of  confidence 
in  the  robust  spirit,  the  manly  determination  and 
the  fine  idealism  of  our  people,  as  well  as  in  their 
ability  to  put  at  the  service  of  the  world  the  un- 
ending resources  of  this  great  continent.  The 
stock  ticker  is  not  a  stalwart  boy  in  khaki,  filled 
with  courage  and  proud  to  do  his  bit  for  a  country 
that  he  loves  —  no,  the  stock  ticker  is  a  nervous 
old  man  who  sometimes  thinks  himself  the  master 
of  the  world  and  again  fears  his  own  shadow.  It 
has  not  conscience,  courage  or  vision.  It  may  be 
a  thermometer  but  it  is  not  a  seer. 

I  am  here  to  ask  your  help  in  the  name  of  the 
President  and  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  in  the 


94  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

sale  of  the  new  issue  of  liberty  bonds.  Our  ap- 
peal on  behalf  of  the  nation  Is  to  the  people  of  the 
nation.  This  Is  a  fight  for  Democracy,  and  we 
are  following  democratic  methods.  A  war  for 
Democracy  should  be  supported  by  the  money  of 
Democracy. 

We  have  drafted  our  young  men  into  our  army. 
The  son  of  the  millionaire  stands  to-day  in  the 
ranks  alongside  the  son  of  the  drayman,  the  law- 
yer alongside  his  own  baker.  We  have  made  no 
preference  and  drawn  no  line  of  distinction,  and 
when  these  same  men  '*  go  over  the  top  "  the  guns 
of  the  enemy  will  show  no  preference  and  draw  no 
distinctions.  This  nation  has  been  summoned  to 
arms  in  a  cause  that  Is  right,  and  every  man  and 
every  woman  will  serve  their  country  In  this  con- 
test. There  Is  not  so  much  credit  In  giving  our 
money  as  In  giving  our  lives,  but  in  a  war  which 
is  the  organized  industrialism  of  all  nations  the 
giving  of  life  will  be  idle  without  the  guns,  the 
food,  the  aeroplanes,  the  trains,  the  ships,  the  fac- 
tories —  all  those  resources  which  money  can  com- 
mand. One-half  of  the  men  now  in  camp  are  vol- 
unteers, militia  or  regular  army  men;  the  other 
half  of  them  drafted.     And  this  same  method,  a 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  WEST     95 

combination  of  compulsion  and  voluntary  offer- 
ing, we  are  following  as  to  our  finances.  Some 
of  our  revenues  we  take  by  the  stern  mandate  of 
the  law  In  the  form  of  taxes,  the  rest  we  ask  for  as 
a  loan  from  our  people. 

This  war  Is  costing  not  less  than  one  hundred 
million  dollars  a  day,  but  this  is  the  least  of  its 
cost.  There  are  five  million  hospital  beds  in  Eu- 
rope. Those  beds  have  been  filled  three  times 
since  this  war  began.  Fifteen  million  men,  the 
stalwarts  of  Europe,  have  passed  over  them,  and 
ten  millions  blind,  armless,or  shattered  wrecks  and 
remnants  of  men  will  live  in  Europe  for  years  to 
come  to  testify  to  the  horrors  of  this  war.  Nine 
million  men,  three  times  the  number  of  men  the 
North  and  South  sent  into  our  Civil  War,  have 
been  killed.  And  all  because  a  few  men  who  are 
masters  of  Germany  determined  that  Germany 
was  to  be  the  master  of  the  world. 

This  is  to  be  a  grim  time  for  us.  Let  us  not 
delude  ourselves  or  carry  any  false  illusions  that 
the  righteousness  of  our  cause,  the  injustice  done 
to  us,  the  vastness  of  our  resources,  or  the  great- 
ness of  our  man-power  will  so  touch  or  overawe 
the  enemy  as  to  make  them  seek  a  peace  that  will 


96  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

make  this  world  safe  for  Democracy  until  those 
who  have  forced  this  fight  realize  that  with  the 
world  against  them  they  cannot  win.  Lloyd 
George  said  the  other  day  that  the  United  States 
had  never  fought  2  war  that  it  had  not  won.  He 
might  have  added  that  we  never  fought  a  war  In 
which  we  did  not  know  that  we  were  right.  This 
war,  however,  is  to  be  a  supreme  test.  We  are  to 
test  the  fiber  of  our  people;  we  are  to  test  our 
ability  to  cooperate;  we  are  to  test  our  sense  of 
nationalism;  we  are  to  test  our  loyalty  to  Democ- 
racy; we  are  to  test  to  the  ultimate  the  resources 
of  our  nation,  the  capacity  of  our  mines  and  min- 
ers, of  our  farms  and  farmers,  of  our  mills  and 
millhands.  We  are  to  test  our  own  vision  and 
the  greatness  of  our  own  minds  —  whether  we  are 
worthy  of  a  large  future  or  wedded  to  a  little  life; 
we  are  to  test  our  own  conception  of  this  country 
and  its  relation  to  the  world. 

What  is  to  be  the  future  of  the  United  States? 
It  was  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  we  could 
remain  isolated.  It  was  our  hope  that  this  might 
be  so,  but  seas  have  been  narrowed  and  interests 
have  been  so  twisted  and  intertwined,  and  our 
rights  are  so  identical  with  the  rights  of  others, 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  WEST     97 

that  the  world  had  become  before  this  war  a  great 
Brotherhood.  We  made  rules  to  control  this  re- 
lationship. Each  people  was  to  determine  for 
itself  what  its  own  internal  policy  should  be. 

It  was  not  for  us  to  say  that  the  form  of  gov- 
ernment which  best  pleased  us  should  be  adopted 
by  others.  But  it  was  for  us  to  say  that,  notwith- 
standing we  were  a  democracy,  notwithstanding 
our  isolated  position,  removed  from  the  European 
and  Asiatic  world  of  struggle,  we  must  be  treated 
with  full  national  honors  and  rights.  The  first 
condition  of  that  Brotherhood  was  that  each  mem- 
ber of  it  should  regard  his  given  word  as  a  pledge 
upon  which  turned  his  right  to  recognition  and 
fraternity.  Upon  entering  into  this  war  Ger- 
many violated  that  pledge  by  the  invasion  of  Bel- 
gium. She  tore  her  treaty  up  and  gave  notice  to 
the  world  that  her  war  necessities  were  superior 
to  her  national  word.  That  was  a  shock  to  the 
conscience  of  every  people.  But  we  stood  neutral 
because  we  did  not  realize  then,  as  we  did  later, 
that  this  act  was  but  an  evidence  of  a  policy  which 
must  sooner  or  later  affect  rights  in  which  we  were 
vitally  interested.  We  saw  the  German  army 
march  to  within  fifty  miles  of  Paris,  until  old 


98  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

Marshal  Joffre  stood  on  the  Marne  and  said: 
"  This  has  gone  far  enough."  We  made  no  pro- 
test at  the  invasion  of  the  country  which  had 
followed  our  lead  into  democracy.  Then  Ger- 
many turned  to  the  seas.  She  sank  our  boats 
loaded  with  American  grain,  and  we  contented 
ourselves  with  a  protest.  She  sank  the  Lusitania 
carrying  American  civilians.  We  protested  that 
the  seas  belonged  to  us  as  much  as  to  her;  that  for 
a  thousand  years  the  lives  of  civilians  had  been 
regarded  as  sacred,  even  though  on  an  enemy  ship. 
And  no  apology  came.  One  after  another  our 
ships  went  down  and  the  ships  of  other  neutral 
nations.  Lives  by  the  hundred  were  lost.  She 
promised  to  respect  our  rights,  but  after  a  time, 
when  she  had  become  ready  to  carry  on  in  more 
ruthless  fashion  her  predatory  war  upon  the  seas, 
we  found  that  this  promise  was  as  worthless  to  us 
as  her  promise  to  Belgium  had  been  to  her. 
Then,  by  the  power  vested  in  it  by  the  Constitution, 
Congress  declared  that  war  had  been  made  upon 
us  and  accepted  the  challenge  which  Germany  had 
thrown  down.  We  were  no  longer  to  be  regarded 
as  a  nation  of  cowards  who  would  not  enforce 
recognition  of  what  all  nations  had  conceded  to  be 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  WEST     99 

our  rights.  There  is  no  appeal  from  that  deci- 
sion. It  is  idle  to  argue  to-day  as  to  the  cause  of 
the  war.  It  is  equally  idle  to  argue  that  we 
should  not  have  entered  the  war.  We  have  made 
our  decision  and  we  are  going  forward.  We 
know  that  we  are  right.  Our  conscience  would 
have  convicted  us  of  cowardice  if  we  had  longer 
withheld  the  assertion  of  our  power. 

But  this  war  has  grown  away  from  a  mere  in- 
vasion of  our  rights.  It  is  to-day  a  contest  be- 
tween the  principle  of  empire  and  the  principle  of 
democracy  —  a  contest  between  the  few  who  be- 
lieve in  government  by  the  soldier  and  the  many 
who  believe  in  government  by  the  people.  It  is  a 
contest  between  those  who  believe  that  men  are 
made  to  serve  the  government  and  those  who 
believe  that  government  is  made  to  serve  the  peo- 
ple. It  is  a  contest  between  those  who  believe 
that  the  purpose  of  government  is  to  enrich  itself 
by  extending  its  boundaries  through  the  use  of 
force,  and  those  who  believe  that  the  purpose  of 
government  is  to  insure  to  the  people  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  Two  systems  are  in 
conflict  here.  The  one  has  come  down  to  us  from 
Caesar.     It  believes  in  mastery,  in  fear,  in  power. 


100         THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

The  other  Is  the  outgrowth  of  a  Christian  civiliza- 
tion. It  believes  that  no  man  or  set  of  men  have 
been  created  by  God  to  master  all  men. 

Why  Is  the  world  against  Germany?  Germany 
does  not  know  that  the  time  of  empires  and  em- 
perors is  past.  She  does  not  know  that  the  day 
of  arbitrary  might  has  gone  by.  She  will  not  play 
the  Twentieth  Century  game  under  Twentieth 
Century  rules.  She  asks  for  friendship,  but  she 
dishonors  her  friends  by  asking  them  to  do  things 
which  they  should  not  do.  There  was  no  country 
more  willing  to  remain  neutral  than  the  Argentine 
Republic.  Yet  Germany's  minister  asks  the  Swed- 
ish minister  to  convey  messages  to  Germany  which 
outline  a  policy  of  ruthlessness  upon  the  sea 
against  that  Republic  which  offends  the  sensibili- 
ties of  mankind.  You  say  to  me  that  Germany 
was  not  hostile  to  the  United  States.  How  can 
any  such  statement  be  made  in  the  face  of  the  Zlm- 
mermann  note,  In  which  Germany,  while  we  were 
still  at  peace  with  her,  called  upon  Mexico  as  her 
friend  to  Invade  our  territory,  promising  her  as 
reward  part  of  our  own  lands  and  attempting  to 
induce  her  to  involve  Japan  with  her  in  war 
against  us !  ^ 


THE  MESSAGE  OF7HE  WJEST     loi 

Is  a  nation  at  peace  with  us  whose  ambassador 
asks  from  his  country  money  with  which  to  influ- 
ence our  Congress,  as  was  shown  by  the  recent 
Bernstorli  cable  to  his  government?  With  what 
contempt  must  the  government  of  Germany  look 
upon  the  American  people  when  they  think  that 
our  Congress  can  be  made  to  do  as  she  wills  and 
not  as  our  people  will?  Government  by  fear  is  not 
to  be  the  master  of  this  earth.  If  Germany  suc- 
ceeds, that  is  the  only  kind  of  government  we  will 
know.  We  will  sail  the  seas  by  her  consent,  car- 
rying our  goods  where  she  permits  it.  We  will 
live  with  a  country  filled  with  spies  and  with  our 
national  capital  undermined  by  foreign  intrigue. 
We  will  never  be  sure  of  the  loyalty  of  our  neigh- 
bors. We  will  never  be  sure  of  the  word  that 
nations  give  to  us.  We  will  endure  life  with  the 
horrors  of  another  such  war  constantly  in  our 
minds.  We  will  pay  taxes  unending  and  huge  to 
support  an  army  which  we  do  not  want  but  must 
have.  Our  sons  will  be  raised  with  the  constant 
thought  in  their  minds  that  theirs  is  not  the  mis- 
sion to  reclaim  the  land,  to  dig  the  mine,  to  carry 
out  the  experiment,  to  lay  the  railroad,  to  lead 
the  minds  of  men,  to  master  the  forces  of  unwill- 


i62        '  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

ing  nature;  for,  from  this  hope,  this  dream  of  use- 
fulness, they  may  any  day  be  turned  aside  by  the 
stern  necessity  of  self-protection;  and  their  wives 
may  be  raised  with  the  picture  continually  before 
their  eyes  of  what  has  befallen  the  Belgian 
women.  This  is  not  a  life  for  a  self-respecting 
people.  We  must  know  where  we  are  and  what 
our  standing  is  and  what  our  future  may  be.  We 
must  know  that  we  have  rights  upon  this  world  — 
rights  that  do  not  depend  upon  sufferance,  rights 
that  we  can  assert.  And  we  must  know  that  while 
we  observe  the  common  laws  that  govern  mankind 
and  keep  our  pledged  word,  no  nation  has  in  its 
mind  the  purpose  to  make  us  subject  to  a  govern- 
ment that  is  not  of  our  own  making.  This  is  the 
foundation  stone  of  Americanism. 

I  ask  you,  as  volunteers  in  the  service  of  your 
country,  to  help  in  the  successful  prosecution  of 
this  war.  I  know  no  people  more  capable  of  con- 
tributing in  small  amounts  and  large  to  the  re- 
plenishing of  our  national  treasury.  We  do  not 
ask  for  gifts;  we  are  not  giving  money  to  our  for- 
eign friends  —  we  are  making  loans  to  them,  and 
you  are  making  loans  to  yourselves. 

I  ask  you  to  do  this  in  the  name  of  our  Com- 


THE  MESSAGE  OF  THE  WEST     103 

mander-In-Chief,  who  sits  In  the  White  House, 
meeting  from  day  to  day  the  problems  of  conduct- 
ing the  greatest  enterprise  upon  which  this  Nation 
has  ever  been  engaged.  His  is  the  master  mind 
of  our  world;  he  is  the  leader  of  liberal  thought 
the  world  around. 

We  need  your  money !  Give  to  your  President 
your  silver  and  gold  that  he  may  fashion  it  into  a 
great  spear,  and  with  it  overthrow  the  champion 
of  the  Divine  Right  of  Kings,  the  principle  which 
enables  the  few  to  enslave  the  many.  Let  Phila- 
delphia be  true  to  her  past,  and  her  future  is  as- 
sured I 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA 

Report  as  Secretary  of  the  Interior  for  igij 

This  has  been  a  year  of  adjustment  and  expan- 
sion within  this  department  as  within  the  Nation. 

The  acceptance  of  Germany's  challenge  and 
the  realization  that  the  national  life  was  now  at 
stake  brought  at  once  a  new  sense  of  the  relative 
importance  of  what  we  did,  what  we  had,  and 
how  we  used  it.  Things  fell  away  as  of  little 
value  which  had  hitherto  been  accepted  without 
questioning  as  worth  while,  and  ideas,  resources, 
powers  which  had  hitherto  been  slightingly  re- 
garded rose  in  their  stead  into  matters  of  prime 
national  concern.  Unless  we  could  transmute 
gold  and  silver  into  coal  and  iron  they  could  no 
longer  be  called  the  precious  metals,  and  unless 
men  had  the  power  to  convert  skill,  strength,  and 
imagination  into  some  form  of  shield  or  spear 
they  could  not  play  in  the  great  game.  There- 
fore we  made  new  appraisal  of  ourselves  in  terms 

104 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     105 

of  ability  to  do  something  that  would  hasten 
the  great  day  of  peace.  We  judged  each  othef 
by  primal  standards  of  proved  capacity,  not  by  the 
standards  of  a  superficial  social  system.  For  this 
is  the  curse  and  the  glory  of  war  —  that  it  has  but 
a  single  scale  of  measurement,  it  puts  but  one  sim- 
ple question:     "What  can  you  do  to  serve  me? 

—  for  now  I  am  the  nation."  It  is  the  directness 
and  the  fulness  of  this  challenge  that  gives  war  its 
spell  and  likewise  gives  birth  to  its  horrors. 

"What  can  you  do  to  serve  me?'*  To  that 
question  each  individual  and  each  department  of 
the  Government  must  ^ve  answer.  The  answer 
of  this  department  is  that  it  has  put  every  agency 
and  activity  which  it  has  at  the  service  of  those 
departments  more  directly  concerned  with  war 
making.  Our  men  of  scientific  knowledge  — 
metallurgists,   chemists,   engineers,   topographers 

—  have  found  new  work  at  their  hands.  The 
homesteaders  and  the  miners  on  the  public  lands 
have  been  released  from  their  obligations  if  they 
go  into  the  Army  or  show  themselves  to  be  of 
greater  service  off  their  lands  than  on  them. 

A  stalwart  westerner  came  in  early  in  May  to 
say  that  he  would  like  to  enter  the  Army,  but  if  he 


io6  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

did  he  could  not  hold  his  mining  claims.  He  was 
a  typical  prospector,  of  steel-frame  construction, 
without  a  superfluous  pound  of  flesh,  and  the  long- 
range  eye  of  the»man  who  lives  in  the  wild  open  — 
the  very  stuff  of  which  the  best  soldier  is  made. 
But  the  fruit  of  his  life's  work  was  all  to  be  found 
in  a  few  holes  in  the  ground  and  a  few  pieces  of 
paper  tacked  on  trees  or  posts  in  the  mountains 
of  the  West.  He  was  willing  to  take  his  chances 
of  returning  if  the  Government  which  wished  him 
to  go  would  be  good  enough  to  hold  his  property 
until  his  return  without  exacting  the  yearly  labor 
which  the  law  required.  His  visit  was  soon  fol- 
lowed by  letters  from  homesteaders  and  from 
other  miners,  making  tender  of  their  lives  in  the 
country's  cause  if  they  could  be  preserved  in  the 
right  to  that  bit  of  the  soil  they  had  accepted  on 
terms  which  they  could  only  meet  by  staying  at 
home.  I  quote  from  one  of  these  letters,  which 
came  from  a  "  dry  farmer  "  in  New  Mexico: 

"  I  expect  the  President  will  need  some  of  us  and  we  don't 
want  to  be  considered  slow  in  coming  forward.  You  tell  him 
we  are  with  him.  But  say  to  him  that  some  other  chap  can 
grab  our  homestead  claims  if  we  go  to  the  war.  Now,  this 
isn't  fair.  A  man  ought  to  have  a  place  to  come  back  to  if  he 
gets  a  chance  to  come  back.     So  we  hope  you  will  get  Congress 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     107 

to  let  things  stand  pat,  just  as  they  are,  until  we  come  home 
again.  We  don't  ask  you  to  give  us  anything,  only  just  a  chance 
to  keep  what  we've  got." 

It  required  little  urging  upon  Congress,  as  may 
be  surmised,  to  have  the  law  so  changed  that  the 
status  of  these  pioneers  could  be  preserved  while 
they  were  absent  "  on  duty." 

The  Reclamation  Service  on  a  million  and  a 
quarter  acres  of  irrigated  lands  and  the  Indians 
on  a  hundred  reservations  joined  in  the  campaign 
for  more  meat  and  more  wheat.  The  Patent 
Office  has  been  searched  for  new  devices  that  could 
be  brought  into  use  to  kill  the  submarine  or  limit 
its  destructiveness,  for  the  plans  of  heretofore  un- 
used lethal  weapons,  and  for  the  formulas  of  im- 
proved or  unknown  sources  of  power.  Before 
war  actually  came  this  department  had  compiled 
the  data  which  showed  the  power  of  the  Nation  in 
mineral  and  chemical  resources,  our  possible 
needs,  and  how  they  could  be  met  at  home  or 
where  abroad.  Prepared  lists  of  those  men  who 
had  special  knowledge  or  were  of  skill  along  the 
lines  of  our  own  activities  enabled  us  to  expand 
as  the  call  was  made. 

Under  the  imperative  mandate  of  war  that  all 


io8         THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

things  shall  become  subject  to  a  new  classification 
according  to  their  usefulness  In  carrying  on  the 
Nation's  struggle,  certain  phases  of  our  work 
have  fallen  Into  the  background,  while  others  have 
been,  brought  Into  the  high  light  of  national  Im- 
portance. We  are  thinking  less,  for  instance,  of 
the  amount  of  public  lands  that  are  being  taken 
by  homesteaders  and  are  absorbed  deeply  in  the 
scientific  work  of  more  recently  established' 
branches  of  the  service.  Yet  if  we  search  for  the 
foundation  of  our  strength,  the  reason  that  Amer- 
ica is  an  invaluable  ally  to  the  western  powers, 
it  will  be  found  In  the  adventuresome  spirit  and 
the  exploiting  energies  of  those  who  pushed  their 
way  into  the  wilderness  and  "  took  up  "  Govern- 
ment lands.  On  these  the  nations  rely  for  the 
foods  and  the  minerals  which  make  possible  the 
war's  continuance.  All  others  who  work  on  what 
these  produce  —  the  manufacturer,  inventor,  even 
the  soldier  —  are  impotent  without  the  coal  oper- 
ator, the  oil  driller,  the  iron  master,  the  farmer, 
and  the  miner,  on  whom  this  "  war  between  re- 
sources "  ultimately  rests.  And  these  have  been 
enabled  to  place  themselves  In  this  crisis  at  the 
world's  service  by  reason  of  the  generous  policy 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     109 

of  this  Government  in  the  disposal  of  its  lands. 
The  attitude  of  the  homesteader  toward  the 
Government  at  this  time  can  not  be  better  pre- 
sented than  by  a  letter  sent  by  a  man  in  Oregon 
to  a  firm  of  land  lawyers  in  this  city : 

"I  have  yours  inclosing  contract  relative  to  the  claim  of  my 
father  for  the  return  of  $150  overpaid  the  Government  upon  the 
entry  of  public  land. 

"  As  I  view  the  condition  of  this  Government  at  this  time  it  is 
no  time  for  such  items  to  be  taken  up  and  harassing  the  depart- 
ments. You  and  your  partner  ought  to  be  trying  to  do  some- 
thing to  help  the  Government  and  yourselves. 

"  I  have  given  personally  months  of  my  time,  and  I  venture 
it  is  worth  as  much  to  me  as  yours  and  your  partner's  is  to 
yourselves,  paid  all  my  expenses,  donated  $500  to  the  Red  Cross, 
purchased  several  hundred  dollars'  worth  of  Liberty  Bonds,  and 
was  one  of  a  party  that  raised  $33,000  in  donations  for  the  Red 
Cross  from  a  population  of  3,300. 

"  The  reason  I  have  been  able  to  do  this  small  amount  is  di- 
rectly attributed  to  the  fact  that  my  father  got  title  to  the  very 
160  acres  of  land  that  you  now  seek  to  have  the  Government  pay 
us  back  $75  and  put  $75  in  your  pocket. 

"  I  have  lived  in  a  very  small  community,  and  there  is  an 
old  saying  that  men  do  not  get  bigger  than  the  community  they 
live  in.  Washington  is  a  large  community  and  there  is  a  num- 
ber of  the  largest  men  we  have  in  the  United  States  reside 
there  during  their  term  of  office,  such  as  the  President  and  the 
Senators.  You  have  the  advantage  of  growing  and  becoming 
very  large.  But  I  feel  bigger  than  the  whole  bunch  of  lawyers 
sticking  around  the  various  departments  and  trying  to  suck 
something  out  of  the  ill-advised  citizenry  of  the  isolated  dis- 
tricts. 

"Trusting  that  you  will  take  this  in  the  spirit  I  write  and 
that  I  will  some  time  in  the  future  hear  of  your  firm  doing 
something  worth  while." 


110  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

The  homesteader,  with  his  covered  wagon,  was 
indeed  the  pioneer  in  preparedness  for  this  war, 
and  that  his  work  has  been  well  done  is  testified  to 
by  such  figures  as  these:  This  year  the  United 
States  will  produce  roughly  five  hundred  and  fifty 
million  tons  of  coal,  three  hundred  million  barrels 
of  petroleum,  seventy  million  tons  of  iron  ore, 
and  over  three  billion  bushels  of  corn,  an  increase 
of  over  six  hundred  million  bushels  over  last  year. 
But  the  making  of  war  to-day  is  far  more  than 
a  test  of  primal  resources;  it  tests  the  full  powers 
of  the  Nation  in  every  resource  and  capacity  and 
especially  along  lines  of  scientific  knowledge. 
And  here  again  we  find  the  ways  of  peace  have 
given  something  in  the  way  of  preparation  for 
war.  The  scientific  bureaus  of  the  Government 
found  themselves  converted  over  night  into  ad- 
juncts and  auxiliaries  in  the  great  international 
contest.  Men  who  had  regarded  themselves  as 
modestly  useful  only  In  the  discovering  and  re- 
vealing of  new  sources  of  material  strength 
found  that  their  years  of  experience  in  the  moun- 
tains and  on  the  desert.  In  laboratories  and  In 
mines,  called  them  at  once  into  the  thick  of  the 
European  struggle. 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     in 

It  was  not  long  after  our  entrance  into  the  war 
that  one  of  our  geologists  came  into  my  office, 
proudly  dressed  in  an  Army  uniform.  The  last 
time  I  had  seen  him  he  had  come  to  make  report 
on  the  tungsten  fields  in  Alaska,  almost  within  the 
Arctic  Circle.  He  had  spent  over  twenty  sum- 
mers in  that  distant  Territory,  taking  here  and 
there  a  sample  of  rock,  studying  the  peculiar  up- 
standing and  twisted  beds  of  coal  in  the  Mata- 
nuska  and  Bering  fields,  rushing  from  one  placer 
gold  field  to  another,  reporting  on  each  new  find 
of  metal,  until  he  had  become  identified  with  the 
rise  of  Alaska  and  was  the  embodiment  of  its 
hopeful  spirit. 

"  I  have  come  to  say  good-by,''  he  said.  "  My 
next  address  will  be  somewhere  in  France  as  a 
member  of  General  Pershing's  stafi." 

I  naturally  asked  the  kind  of  work  that  an 
Alaskan  geologist  would  be  called  upon  to  do  with 
an  army.  His  answer  illustrates  how  much  of 
science  has  gone  into  war. 

"  My  work,''  he  replied,  "  is  to  be  concerned 
with  the  location  of  trenches  and  dugouts.  We 
must  have  trenches  into  which  the  country  will 
not  drain.     These  slashes  in  the  earth  can  be 


112  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

made  so  that  they  will  do  their  own  draining. 
Mud,  mud,  mud !  That  is  the  trench  curse  which 
brings  on  trench  feet  and  puts  the  soldier  out  of 
business.'' 

And  then  on  a  sheet  of  paper  he  drew  the  slope 
of  a  hill  and  explained  how  if  located  in  one  place, 
because  of  the  peculiar  stratification  of  the  earth, 
the  trench  would  act  as  a  cesspool  or  reservoir, 
gathering  in  all  the  waters  of  the  neighboring 
terrain,  while  if  placed  elsewhere  it  would  be  im- 
mune from  this  disadvantage  and  through  certain 
strata  furnish  a  natural  waste  pipe  for  the  super- 
ficial waters.  So  was  the  American  soldier  to  be 
given  a  healthier  place  in  which  to  live  and  work 
and  be  more  efficient. 

A  short  time  later  came  a  group  of  topogra- 
phers, chief  of  whom  was  another  of  General 
Pershing's  staff.  They,  too,  were  in  full  khaki  and 
bound  for  Europe.  Theirs  was  to  be  the  game  of 
surveying,  platting,  and  most  vividly  and  accu- 
rately presenting  to  the  eye  the  land  over  which 
the  new  railroads  would  run,  the  railroads  that 
would  carry  men,  supplies  and  munitions  to  the 
front,  and  carry  back  the  wounded.  From  their 
maps  the   artillery  officers  could  determine   the 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     113 

heights  and  the  hollows  where  the  big  guns  would 
be  placed,  the  rivers  that  must  be  crossed,  their 
fords  and  banks  and  bridges,  the  roads,  the  ferries 
and  forests,  and  all  the  details  of  a  landscape  that 
changes  from  day  to  day  under  the  pressing  ad- 
vance or  the  forced  retreat.  For  now  they  fire 
guns  "  unsight  and  unseen  "  and  men  by  the  mil- 
lion move  by  the  map. 

The  major  who  led  this  squad  of  scientific  men 
had  spent  most  of  his  life  upon  the  rivers  and  in 
the  mountains  of  the  far  West.  He  and  his  men 
had  been  for  years  platting  the  lands  of  the 
United  States,  showing  drainage  and  elevations, 
what  the  farmer  calls  "  the  lay  of  the  land;  "  and 
these  modest  American  map  makers  were  on  their 
way  to  join  a  force  for  the  remaking,  possibly,  of 
the  map  of  Europe. 

Out  of  the  work  of  building  our  great  dams 
upon  the  Rio  Grande  and  the  Colorado  Rivers 
there  also  came  a  by-product  for  war  making. 
To  be  sure,  no  large  dams  were  needed  to  im- 
pound the  waters  of  France,  but  the  engineers 
who  build  such  dams  know  the  newly  discovered 
art  of  mixing  concrete  as  few  men  do.  There 
is  not  so  much  difference,  after  all,  between  a 


114  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

trench  and  an  Irrigation  ditch,  and  hundreds  of 
miles  of  such  smooth-surfaced,  water-conserving 
ditches  have  been  built  upon  our  reclamation  proj- 
ects. For  the  construction  of  the  dugout  and 
the  bomb  proof,  the  gun  foundation  and  the 
trench,  there  was  need  for  these  men  of  expert 
experience,  and  so  to  the  Yakima  Valley  and 
that  of  the  Colorado  went  the  call  of  the  war. 

Another  curious  illustration  of  the  war  use  of 
peace  machinery  was  brought  to  light  when  a 
group  of  chemists,  representing  the  gathered  gen- 
ius of  the  country  in  this  science  met  in  this  office 
to  discuss  the  problem  of  toxic  poisoning  by  gases. 

When  the  Bureau  of  Mines  was  created  by 
Congress  five  years  ago,  it  was  hardly  to  have 
been  imagined  that  the  methods  used  for  the  sav- 
ing of  Hfe  in  the  coal  mines  of  the  United  States 
would  become  of  vital  use  in  the  problem  of  sav- 
ing lives  and  destroying  lives  in  a  world  war;  yet 
this  is  just  what  has  happened.  Germany,  which 
has  been  foremost  for  some  years  In  the  science 
of  chemistry,  and  out  of  its  extensive  experience 
has  developed  a  form  of  warfare  which  had  not 
before  been  known,  a  modern  expression  of  those 
diabolical  inventions  such  as  the  cervl  and  stimuli 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     115 

which  made  Caesar's  campaign  In  Gaul  to  be  char- 
acterized as  a  war  of  science.  To  meet  this  new 
method  of  attack  by  deadly  gases,  the  western 
powers  promptly  provided  gas  masks  which  con- 
tained chemical  absorbents  or  other  agents  that 
would  negative  the  effects  of  the  gases  sent  adrift 
by  their  enemies.  The  soldier's  kit,  which  was  so 
simple  a  thing  In  other  wars,  had  to  be  Increased 
by  a  gas  mask  not  unlike  the  helmet  of  a  deep-sea 
diver,  with  a  box  of  chemicals  adapted  for  off- 
setting the  effect  of  the  various  kinds  of  gas  the 
enemy  was  known  to  use;  and  for  special  use  In 
dugouts  and  saps  filled  with  concentrated  gas,  an 
oxygen  supply  was  furnished.  These  outfits  were 
not  new  to  the  world.  For  some  years  there  has 
been  keen  rivalry  between  the  great  mining  na- 
tions as  to  the  one  which  provided  the  best.  pThey 
were  put  on  by  those  who  went  into  the  mine 
where  poisonous  gases  from  explosions  or  fires 
were  known  or  supposed  to  exist.  Every  rescue 
gang  wore  them.  This  country  claimed  that  it 
had  improved  upon  the  English,  German,  and 
French  in  the  mask  which  it  provided. 

At  any  rate,  when  we  came  into  the  war  we 
found  ourselves  prepared  with  the  knowledge,  the 


ii6  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

machinery,  and  the  men  to  meet  promptly  the 
need  of  gas  masks  In  great  quantity  and  of  a  su- 
perior type.  Thus  the  men  who  had  been  on  this 
work  of  meeting  the  gases  compounded  in  na- 
ture's laboratory  were  found  to  have  a  reserve 
of  knowledge  as  to  what  gases  will  kill  and  what 
will  choke  and  what  will  burn  and  what  will  has- 
ten disease,  which  In  a  war  of  cumulative  fright- 
fulness  would  make  the  United  States  modestly 
distinguished  If  it  wished  to  so  shine.  As  one  of 
the  group  said,  "  We  chemists  In  America  have 
never  turned  our  minds  to  the  destruction  of  hu- 
man life.  Our  work  has  been  constructive  —  the 
chemistry  of  the  soil,  of  cement,  of  printers'  ink, 
of  the  by-products  from  petroleum  and  tar,  of 
countless  things  which  will  make  for  a  longer,  a 
happier  life  for  man.  But  if  the  world  is  to  be 
turned  upside  down  and  Instead  of  staying  death 
and  disease,  and  making  new  things  that  man  can 
use  for  his  own  ennoblement,  we  are  wanted  to 
push  forward  the  work  of  the  destruction  of  man 
and  all  his  works,  we  can  become  rivals  of  the 
worst  In  such  enterprise." 

This  Is  not  the  time  to  present  the  things  done 
and  the  things  doing  by  these  men  of  the  necro- 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     117 

mantle  science,  but  when  the  day  comes  for  cast- 
ing up  accounts  and  giving  credit,  their  work  will 
not  go  unrecognized. 

In  this  department  we  have  during  the  past 
year  had  a  glimpse  of  the  expanding  romance  of 
chemical  study.  We  have  found  adventure  in 
the  search  for  the  hidden  secrets  of  petroleum, 
natural  gas,  and  coal  tar,  of  coal  smoke  and  the 
refuse  from  a  hundred  furnaces  and  smokestacks. 
We  appear  to  have  suddenly  driven  into  a  chem- 
ical age,  or  perhaps  it  would  be  more  accurate  to 
say  that  we  have  suddenly  realized  that  we  are  in 
such  an  age.  New  explosives,  new  fertilizers, 
new  sources  of  power,  of  food,  new  materials  for 
construction  and  destruction,  new  preservatives 
of  life  and  new  agencies  for  the  sweetening  and 
wholesoming  of  life  —  these  are  to  the  credit  of 
the  modern  chemist,  and  as  a  by-product  of  this 
war  we  are  to  have  a  higher  appreciation  of  this 
branch  of  science,  and  our  genius  for  discovery 
which  has  so  greatly  been  applied  to  problems  of 
mechanics  will  find  In  analytic  and  synthetic  chem- 
istry a  field  of  opportunity  subject  to  almost  in- 
finite expansion. 

America  has  been  a  wholesaler  in  raw  materials. 


ii8         THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

Our  boast  has  been  In  the  millions  of  tons  of  steel 
or  coal  or  barrels  of  oil  or  of  feet  of  lumber 
that  we  could  produce.  We  dealt  in  things  of 
magnitude,  that  we  took  greatly  as  they  came 
out  of  nature's  storehouse,  not  thinking  or  not 
caring  how  much  of  any  mysterious  value  they 
concealed.  The  chemist  finds  that  nothing  is 
simple;  he  tears  all  things  apart  to  find  things  that 
are  not  patent  to  the  eye,  and  out  of  the  infinitely 
little  and  obscure  creates  a  new  world  of  things 
useful  and  beautiful.  This  is  the  conversion  that 
is  going  on  in  America  in  all  fields.  We  are  en- 
tering upon  the  quest  for  the  minor  metals,  our 
rarer  woods,  our  select  places  of  beauty  and  of 
exceptional  climate  or  fertility.  In  all  the  domain 
of  this  great  country  extending  from  the  semi- 
tropics  across  the  desert  and  the  most  forbidding 
wastes  into  the  far  Arctic  we  have  come  to  believe 
that  there  is  no  land  that  is  entirely  valueless. 

War  forces  a  nation  to  an  intensive  study  of 
what  it  can  do.  Thought  and  work  —  these  are 
the  answers  to  the  problems  of  material  insuf- 
ficiency. We  of  America  have  had  no  little  to 
boast  of  through  the  quick  century  of  our  march 
across  a  continent.     And  without  doubt  our  abil- 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     119 

ity  to  stand  alone,  depending  on  ourselves  for  the 
things  that  make  a  modern  industrial  nation,  is 
something  of  which  we  may  be  proud,  not  so 
much  because  we  have  this  land  as  because  we 
have  found  out  its  worth  and  made  it  ours  by 
putting  it  to  use.  But  we  soon  realize  when, 
thrown  into  such  a  struggle  as  this  war  how  far 
removed  from  entire  Independence  we  are.  Cof- 
fee, rubber,  and  manganese  from  Brazil,  chrome 
from  South  Africa,  tea  from  the  Orient,  sugar 
from  Cuba,  sisal  from  Mexico,  nitrates  from 
Chile,  hides  and  meat  from  the  Argentine,  wool 
from  Australia,  pyrites  from  Spain  —  these  are 
of  the  raw  materials  we  need  and  for  which  the 
ocean  must  be  kept  open,  unless  our  dependent 
Industries  are  to  weaken.  Yet  it  Is  hardly  an 
overstatement  to  say  that  we  could  live  alone  with 
some  substitution  for  a  few  of  these  things.  For 
we  do  not  know  or  have  not  developed  what  we 
have.  One  illustration  will  make  this  clear.  We 
have  great  use  for  sulphuric  acid  and  our  devel- 
oped sulphur  mines  have  not  furnished  a  full  sup- 
ply. Certain  of  our  Industries  largely  depend  on 
the  sulphur  that  we  can  roast  out  of  pyrite  ore 
that  comes  from  Spain.     The  ships  that  have  car- 


;i2o         THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

rieJ  our  wheat  abroad  have  loaded  back  with 
Spanish  pyrite.  But  ships,  as  we  have  found,  are 
not  to  be  created  by  rubbing  Aladdin's  lamp,  so 
our  pyrite  supply  fell  short  of  the  demand  foF 
the  sulphuric  acid  that  cuts  the  phosphate  rock 
into  fertilizer  for  southern  cotton. 

In  studying  a  map  of  southern  ore  deposits 
with  relation  to  the  placing  of  a  nitrate  plant 
it  became  evident  that  pyrite  was  to  be  found  in 
a  stretch  of  the  mountains  running  from  northern 
Georgia  to  central  Alabama.  And  just  when 
this  was  found  there  came  into  the  office  one  of 
the  most  forceful  of  southern  manufacturers,  who 
entered  with  a  statement  that  he  was  looking  for 
a  place — ''  not  under  the  spotlight,'*  *'  I'm  not  a 
prima  donna;  just  a  man's  job;  something  some- 
body else  would  shy  at." 

**  Why  not  find  the  pyrite  ore  in  your  southern 
hills?"  I  asked. 

"  Never  heard  of  the  stuff,  but  if  it's  there  and 
you  say  we  need  it  for  the  war  I'll  get  it." 

That  was  almost  literally  the  conversation  that 
has  led  to  the  opening  of  Rve  mines  yielding  400 
tons  a  day,  which  it  is  promised  before  the  win- 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     121 

ter  IS  over  will  be  increased  to  a  thousand  tons 
a  day;  and  30,000  tons  a  month  is  more  than  fif- 
teen ships  could  bring  from  Spain  to  our  coast 
if  kept  in  a  continuous  circle. 

These  straggling  incidents  will  suggest  the  pic- 
ture of  a  people  struggling  to  equip  itself  for 
war.  Other  departments  of  this  Government 
will  doubtless  reveal  to  you  more  completely  the 
extent  to  which  this  Nation  has  proved  itself  ade- 
quate to  the  imperious  needs  of  this  time,  and  yet 
I  feel  no  hesitancy  in  saying  that  out  of  the  ex- 
periences of  this  department  might  be  gathered 
the  material  that  would  illustrate  the  strength  and 
the  weakness  of  democracy  making  war.  For  we 
have  the  strength  that  comes  from  the  vital,  dy- 
namic force  released  under  free  institutions  where 
personal  initiative  has  free  play,  and  we  have,  too, 
the  weakness  that  comes  from  a  lack  of  the  reali- 
zation of  the  necessity  for  coordinated,  purpose- 
ful effort. 

A  democracy  making  war  Is  never  an  agreeable 
sight,  for  it  is  not  in  its  normal  line  of  life.  And 
those  who  sneer  or  jeer  because  it  does  not  play 
the  game  as  well  as  might  be,  pay  an  unconscious 


122  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

compliment  to  the  merits  of  free  institutions.  It 
takes  time  to  accustom  men  to  the  short,  hard 
words  of  command,  and  to  the  surrender  of  per- 
sonal judgment.  It  is  not  easy,  either,  for  a  na- 
tion to  turn  its  back  upon  the  conception  of  a 
world  where  justice  works  out  its  ends  by  quiet 
processes,  and  In  its  stead  come  to  the  stern  be- 
lief that  the  ultimate  court  is  a  battle  field.  So 
if  there  is  wrenching  and  side-slipping  and  con- 
fusion there  should  be  no  surprise.  [The  surprise 
to  me  has  been  with  what  comparative  ease  the 
transition  has  been  made,  and  how  much  uncon- 
scious preparation  for  the  new  work  had  been  al- 
ready made. 

Now,  that  our  problem  is  to  produce  more  than 
ever  before,  it  is  clearly  to  be  seen  that  the  physi- 
cal resources  of  the  United  States  are  to-day 
almost  completely  at  the  command  of  the  world's 
needs.  If,  indeed,  for  the  past  forty  years  this 
Nation  had  been  planning  to  make  war  upon  its 
neighbors,  and  so  seize  the  continent  for  itself, 
what  more  would  have  been  done  to  make  our  re- 
sources available  for  such  an  adventure?  This 
is,  perhaps,  the  hardest  test  to  which  the  problem 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     123 

of  our  internal  development  could  be  put.  Yet 
the  answer  must  be  that  very  little  more  could 
have  been  done  or  would  have  been  done  by  a 
people  necessarily  doing  so  much. 

Modern  industrialism  may  be  epitomized  as 
power  plus  iron.  We  lack  neither.  It  is  the  un- 
precedented and  the  not-to-be-anticipated  burden 
of  providing  not  alone  for  ourselves,  but  for 
nearly  all  of  western  Europe  and  part  of  Asia  and 
Russia  which  makes  the  great  demand.  For  our 
own  needs  we  have  coal  and  iron  and  nearly  all 
the  rich  line  of  less  common  minerals  in  abun- 
dance. It  sounds  most  boastful  to  say  that  the 
most  paternal  of  governments,  intent  upon  a  dy- 
nastic purpose,  would  hardly  have  found  ways  to 
supply  itself  more  liberally  with  the  fundamentals 
of  the  great  war  industries  than  has  been  effected 
by  the  quiet  searching  and  working  of  this  free 
people.  And  what  is  true  as  to  minerals  is 
equally  true  as  to  the  products  of  the  soil.  The 
large  liberty  of  life  and  the  casting  of  responsi- 
bility upon  the  individual,  allowing  personal  am- 
bition to  be  a  substitute  for  direct  command,  and 
curiosity  to  be  the  spur  to  knowledge  —  these 


124  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

have  put  under  crop  the  greater  part  of  the  con- 
tinent and  made  this  the  relief  depot  of  starving 
nations. 

Of  one  thing,  however,  we  may  be  sure,  that  a 
nation  intent  upon  its  own  self-sufficiency  would 
not  be  holding  under  what  is  tantamount  to  Gov- 
ernment withdrawal  the  two  newest  sources  of 
power  —  substitutes  for  that  coal  which  costs  the 
labor  of  a  million  men  and  is  the  greatest  of  all 
the  burdens  of  our  railroads  —  water  power  and 
petroleum.  It  may  be  expected  surely  that  Con- 
gress in  its  coming  session  will  release  these  re- 
sources by  passing  those  leasing  bills  which  have 
so  long  been  pending  in  both  Houses. 

But  this  war  is  not  to  be  won  by  the  measuring 
of  resources,  for  if  wars  were  to  be  so  won  China 
possibly  would  be  our  only  rival.  The  spirit  of 
the  people  is  the  making  of  the  Nation,  in  war  as 
in  peace.  The  extent  to  which  a  people  can  co- 
operate marks  the  point  of  civilization  they  have 
reached.  Now,  the  greatest  outstanding  fact  of 
the  past  year,  as  clearly  shown  in  the  work  of  this 
department  alone,  is  that  under  the  crystallizing 
influence  of  a  common  danger  and  under  the  in- 
spiring impulse  of  a  common  purpose,  Americans 


i  A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     125 

are  quick  to  come  together.  The  very  rush  made 
Upon  Washington  at  the  beginning  of  war  by  those 
who  wished  to  help  in  any  form  of  war  work  was 
evidence  of  the  consciousness  that  life  and  its  con- 
duct were  no  longer  matters  of  individual  concern 
but  preeminently  of  communal  value.  Industry 
itself,  which  has  been  thought  to  have  no  soul 
above  the  selfish  acquisition  of  money,  was  fore- 
most in  its  willingness  to  serve  when  shown  how 
it  could.  And  whenever  men  come  to  perceive 
something  better  and  bigger  than  they  are  them- 
selves, they  are  in  the  way  of  coming  into  the  full 
light  of  a  new  sun,  under  the  influence  of  which 
changes  that  are  miraculous  take  place  —  in  re- 
ligion they  call  it  regeneration,  in  industry  social- 
ization, the  gaining  of  a  new  sense,  a  social  as  dis- 
tinguished from  a  personal  sense.  It  is  all  a 
matter  of  vision,  of  seeing  clearly,  clearly  enough 
to  convert  speculation  into  conduct. 

Men  are  already  thinking  of  the  greater  Amer- 
ica that  they  believe  to  be  coming  when  the  war  is 
done.  We  are  in  this  war  as  the  trustees  of 
social  and  political  ideals,  most  of  them  unformed, 
even  embryonic,  and  these  we  hope  to  realize 
through  the  strength  of  the  Nation.     Our  nation- 


126  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

allsm,  intense,  virile,  and  of  the  fighting  kind,  is 
a  part  of  the  machinery  through  which  we  are 
working  to  make  all  men  our  debtors.  Our  na- 
tional purpose  is  to  transmute  days  of  dreary  work 
into  happier  lives  —  for  ourselves  first  and  for 
all  others  in  their  time.  This  is  the  large  view, 
the  idealistic  view,  if  you  please,  of  America's  mis- 
sion. It  is  the  subconscious  philosophy  of  all  our 
history  —  our  wars,  our  public-school  system,  our 
conservation  schemes,  our  enterprise. 

This  greater  America  is  not  to  be  the  filmy 
product  of  a  nation  s  fancy,  the  day  dream  of  a 
monumental  national  ego.  It  is  to  be  as  substan- 
tial as  hard  thought  and  hard  work  can  make  it, 
a  thing  of  good  roads,  ships,  and  railroads,  well- 
fertilized  farms  and  well-organized  industry,  reg- 
ulated rivers  put  to  use,  and  schools  and  schools 
and  schools,  and  laboratories  and  more  labora- 
tories! War  has  taught  England  and  France 
much,  one  thing  perhaps  above  all  others,  how  all 
important  in  this  day  is  the  man  who  has  the  new 
kind  of  savoir  faire.  If  we  are  to  meet  the  full 
rivalry  of  the  world,  we  must  rest  chance  for 
success  upon  our  ability  to  produce  men  who.  In 
character,  in  trained  capacities,  and  in  radioactive 


A  NEW  AND  GREATER  AMERICA     127 

imagination  will  outmatch  those  whom  they  are 
to  meet.  This  new  America,  as  the  old,  will  con- 
tribute to  the  world  raw  products  with  most  gen- 
erous hand.  But  the  ultimate  resource  of  the 
Nation  is  not  that  which  lies  within  the  ground 
but  that  which  vibrates  in  man's  brain.  There- 
fore out  of  the  struggle  and  torture  that  we  shall 
pass  through,  and  the  reverses  and  triumph  that 
we  shall  meet,  there  should  evolve  the  conception 
of  America  as  the  center  of  the  world's  thought, 
an  America  that  will  give  that  leadership  and  di- 
rection to  the  scientific,  literary,  and  social  thought 
of  the  world  that  we  pride  ourselves  we  have  re- 
cently given  to  its  political  thought.  Our  status 
in  this  war  gives  us  a  place  of  moral  ascendency 
from  which  if  we  are  great  enough  to  be  humble 
we  can  become  real  masters  of  men,  conquerors  of 
the  invisible  kingdom  of  man's  mind. 


MAKERS  OF  THE  FLAG 

Address  delivered  on  Flag  Day,  1914,  before  the  em- 
ployees of  the  Department  of  the  Interior,  Washington, 
D.C, 

This  morning,  as  I  passed  into  the  Land  Office, 
The  Flag  dropped  me  a  most  cordial  salutation, 
and  from  its  rippling  folds  I  heard  it  say: 
**  Good  morning,  Mr.  Flag  Maker/* 

"  I  beg  your  pardon.  Old  Glory,"  I  said, 
**  aren't  you  mistaken?  I  am  not  the  President  of 
the  United  States,  nor  a  member  of  Congress,  nor 
even  a  general  in  the  army.  I  am  only  a  Govern- 
ment clerk." 

"  I  greet  you  again,  Mr.  Flag  Maker,"  replied 
the  gay  voice,  "  I  know  you  well.  You  are  the 
man  who  worked  in  the  swelter  of  yesterday 
straightening  out  the  tangle  of  that  farmer's 
homestead  in  Idaho,  or  perhaps  you  found  the 
mistake  in  that  Incfian  contract  in  Oklahoma,  or 
helped  to  clear  that  patent  for  the  hopeful  in- 
ventor in  New  York,  or  pushed  the  opening  of 
that  new  ditch  in  Colorado,  or  made  that  mine  in 

128 


MAKERS  OF  THE  FLAG  129 

Illinois  more  safe,  or  brought  relief  to  the  old 
soldier  In  Wyoming.  No  matter;  whichever  one 
of  these  beneficent  individuals  you  may  happen  to 
be,  I  give  you  greeting,  Mr.  Flag  Maker." 
{I  was  about  to  pass  on,  when  The  Flag  stopped 
m'C'  with  these  words : 

*'  Yesterday  the  President  spoke  a  word  that 
made  happier  the  future  of  ten  million  peons  in 
Mexico;  but  that  act  looms  no  larger  on  the  flag 
than  the  struggle  which  the  boy  In  Georgia  is  mak- 
ing to  win  the  Corn  Club  prize  this  summer. 

"  Yesterday  the  Congress  spoke  a  word  which 
will  open  the  door  of  Alaska;  but  a  mother  In 
Michigan  worked  from  sunrise  until  far  Into  the 
night,  to  give  her  boy  an  education.  She,  too,  is 
making  the  flag. 

'*  Yesterday  we  made  a  new  law  to  prevent 
financial  panics,  and  yesterday,  maybe,  a  school 
teacher  in  Ohio  taught  his  first  letters  to  a  boy 
who  will  one  day  write  a  song  that  will  give  cheer 
to  the  millions  of  our  race.  We  are  all  making 
the  flag.';) 

"  But,'' (I  said  Impatiently,  J  these  people  were 
only  working  I  " 

Then  came  a  great  shout  from  The  Flag: 


130  THE  AMERICAN  SPIRIT 

**  The  work  that  we  do  Is  the  making  of  the 
flag. 

"  I  am  not  the  flag;  not  at  all.  I  am  but  Its 
shadow. 

*'  I  am  whatever  you  make  me,  nothing  more. 

(*  I  am  your  belief  in  yourself,  your  dream  of 
what  a  People  may  become. 

"  I  live  a  changing  life,  a  life  of  moods  and 
passions,  of  heart  breaks  and  tired  muscles. 

"  Sometimes  I  am  strong  with  pride,  when  men 
do  an  honest  work,  fitting  the  rails  together  truly. 

"  Sometimes  I  droop,  for  then  purpose  has 
gone  from  me,  and  cynically  I  play  the  coward. 

*'  Sometimes  I  am  loud,  garish,  and  full  of  that 
ego  that  blasts  judgment. 

*'  But  always,  I  am  all  that  you  hope  to  be,  and 
have  the  courage  to  try  for. 

^  I  am  song  and  fear,  struggle  and  panic,  and 
ennobling  hope. 

*'  I  am  the  day's  work  of  the  weakest  man,  and 
the  largest  dream  of  the  most  daring. 

*'  I  am  the  Constitution  and  the  courts,  statutes 
and  the  statute  makers,  soldier  and  dreadnaught, 
drayman  and  street  sweep,  cook,  counselor,  and 
clerk. 


MAKERS  OF  THE  FLAG  131 

*'  I  am  the  battle  of  yesterday,  and  the  mistake 
of  to-morrow. 

r  I  am  the  mystery  of  the  men  who  do  without 
knowing  why. 

**  I  am  the  clutch  of  an  idea,  and  the  reasoned 
purpose  of  resolution. 

-    "  I  am  no  more  than  what  you  believe  me  to  be 
and  I  am  all  that  you  believe  I  can  be. 

"  I  am  what  you  make  me,  notking  more.} 

"  I  swing  before  your  eyes  as  a  bright  gleam 
of  color,  a  symbol  of  yourself,  the  pictured  sug- 
gestion of  that  big  thing  which  makes  this  nation. 
My  stars  and  my  stripes  are  your  dream  and  your 
labors.  They  are  bright  with  cheer,  brilliant 
with  courage,  firm  with  faith,  because  you  have 
made  them  so  out  of  your  hearts.  For  you  are 
the  makers  of  the  flag  and  it  is  well  that  you  glory 
in  the  making.'* 


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